World Net Daily: Still Peddling Teh Birther Crazie

As it's been a week or so since we took a peek into birther central, World Net Daily, I thought it might be a good idea to take another peek.

Man oh man oh man, you will not believe what they're peddling now.

On June 2, Politico reported:

White House Counsel Bob Bauer will step down from his post and return to private practice, where he will assist President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, the White House announced Thursday.

Kathryn Ruemmler, the current principal deputy counsel to the president, will take Bauer’s place when he returns to the Washington office of the Perkins Coie law firm.

Bauer will resume the role he had during Obama’s 2008 presidential run, serving as general counsel to the campaign and to the Democratic National Committee, and as personal lawyer to Obama, the White House said. The change will allow him to help Obama’s reelection campaign navigate an increasingly complex legal thicket created by a recent Supreme Court ruling that allowed more corporate spending on politics and by the prospect of new, well-funded political committees trying to shape the 2012 presidential race.

Pretty cut and dried, right?

Not so much for Jerome Corsi, PhD. From WND:

The author of the best-selling "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible To Be President" charged today the resignation of White House counsel Bob Bauer is the result of his participation in the release of Barack Obama's "Certificate of Live Birth," which he fears would not stand up to the scrutiny of any serious investigation by the FBI, Congress or the media.

And here's Corsi's conspiracy:

But Jerome Corsi, Ph.D., who authored the "Where's the Birth Certificate?" book that debuted at No. 6 on the New York Times best-sellers list after reaching No. 1 several weeks earlier at Amazon.com, said, "I think Bauer's resignation marks the beginning of the Obama eligibility cover-up starting to unwind."

Corsi believes Bauer "felt compelled" to resign because of the growing substance to worries that the eligibility issue will blow up into a full-scale investigation.

"Bauer sent Perkins and Coie attorneys to Honolulu to pick up from the Hawaii Department of Health what he believed would be two certified copies of Obama's 1961 long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate," Corsi said.

"When the White House released to the public the birth certificate in the form of a PDF computer file obviously created on Adobe software and a Xerox copy, Bauer realized the Hawaii DOH had participated in the fraud," Corsi charged.

Corsi said he had been tipped off early in February that a long-form birth document for Obama had been forged and that the document was to be released.

See, the story is that before the long form certificate was released the birthers believed that the long form certificate said something different than the short form released in 2007.

Now that it's known that the long form and the short form tell the same tale, the long form, according to Corsi and the birthers, must be a forgery.

It's all so simple, isn't it?

As a footnote, the birthers at WND are moving to another area of research - Obama's passport.

Take a look:

In this era of tight airport security, the Transportation Safety Administration typically will not allow a passenger to board an airplane if the name printed on the ticket differs from the way it appears on government-issued identification.

Now that the White House has released President Obama's purported long-form birth certificate, a question arises as to why the name on that document does not match the name on his State Department passport.

It says "Barack Hussein Obama II" on the birth certificates but only "Barack Hussein Obama" on the passport!

As the State Department takes the info off of whatever embossed birth certificates are submitted, there's now a question as to why they don't match. From WND:

Presumably, the State Department intends to use the full name presented on the birth certificate as the name presented on the passport.

Since Obama has refused to release his passport records, it is impossible to determine what documents were submitted to the State Department to obtain the passport.

WND: Crazie, crazier, craziest.

The Trib Brain Trust Just Can't Help Itself

Today, I thought I'd try something new. Here's the whole "Sunday Pops" column from today's Tribune-Review:

So, would those arguing that the federal judge who struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage has a "conflict" because he has a gay partner argue that a federal judge with a wife who upheld the ban is similarly conflicted? ... How can the Keystone Research Center's "independent" Budget and Policy Center claim to be "independent" when its parent is an arm of organized labor? ... After years of speculation over whether he was a natural-born U.S. citizen, President Barack Obama finally released his birth certificate indicating he was born in Hawaii. But given Mr. Obama could have nipped the matter in the bud years ago, why did he wait so long to do so? ... Donald Trump is taking credit for forcing the president to release his birth certificate. But he might have a "birther" problem of his own. We're told some tabloid is about to report that Mr. Trump was born on Mars ... or Venus ... or was it Mercury? ... Lest we forget, the whole "birther" controversy was started by supporters of Hillary Clinton after she lost the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination. So much for the shibboleth that this was a "right-wing operation." [Bold in original.]

A mixture of spin and just plain silly (and one they get right). Let's go point by point.

Point 1 -

So, would those arguing that the federal judge who struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage has a "conflict" because he has a gay partner argue that a federal judge with a wife who upheld the ban is similarly conflicted?

Ok, so I have no problem with this one. They even got the irony quotes right. Only one thing: it's obvious that they're assuming that the hypothetical federal judge in that last phrase is male. (A teensy bit of sexism that should be pointed out.) If she were female then the meaning of the sentence is completely changed, doncha think?

So Let's move on.

Point 2 -

How can the Keystone Research Center's "independent" Budget and Policy Center claim to be "independent" when its parent is an arm of organized labor?

Seeing this on the Scaife-funded Trib, I chuckled. Especially when I found this from Commonwealth Foundation:

Everyone loves to hate "special interests." They spend millions of dollars in electing and lobbying public officials in order to gain political or legislative favor.

So it was no surprise when groups like PennFuture and the Keystone Research Center's Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center joined with Common Cause PA and the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters to attack individuals affiliated with the natural gas industry for giving $2 million in state campaign contributions over the past 10 years. Nor was it surprising that they called for a severance tax to punish this "special interest."

But someone forgot to tell these organizations living in glass houses that they ought not to throw stones.

Indeed, the $2 million in contributions given over 10 years by natural gas interests is dwarfed by the contributions of the labor unions that run the Keystone Research Center's Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (KRC/PBPC). Union political action committees gave $27 million in state races in 2007-08 alone and $60 million over the last three election cycles. Of course these special interests expect special favors in return for their "investments." [Emphasis added for dramatic effect]

How much money has Scaife funneled to the Commonwealth Foundation, the foundation that attacks the KRC for being in the pocket of it's "special interest" donors? About $2 million.

Of course the editorial board writers of the Scaife owned paper would never mention this.

Point 3 -

After years of speculation over whether he was a natural-born U.S. citizen, President Barack Obama finally released his birth certificate indicating he was born in Hawaii. But given Mr. Obama could have nipped the matter in the bud years ago, why did he wait so long to do so?

I want you to note the grammatical lack of clarity of that first sentence before we look at its rhetorical misdirection. Was it Obama who was speculating that he wasn't born in Hawaii? Surely looks that way. But the rhetorical misdirection is the greater sin here. In order for this phrase "Obama finally released his birth certificate indicating he was born in Hawaii" to be true, the official birth certificate released 3 years ago has to be something other than an official birth certificate. All they did was to move the goal posts from "he's not one of us." to "what's he hiding by waiting for so long?"

Except he didn't wait. See what the Trib did there?

Point 4 -

Donald Trump is taking credit for forcing the president to release his birth certificate. But he might have a "birther" problem of his own. We're told some tabloid is about to report that Mr. Trump was born on Mars ... or Venus ... or was it Mercury?

The "on what planet was The Donald born?" is actually a Karl Rove talking point. I heard him use it the other night. Other than that, this is just silly.

Point 5 -

Lest we forget, the whole "birther" controversy was started by supporters of Hillary Clinton after she lost the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination. So much for the shibboleth that this was a "right-wing operation."

THAT'S RIGHT! It's a lib'rul plot! Spread by the lib'rul media best represented by:

• World Net Daily
• Rush Limbaugh
• Sean Hannity
• Michael Savage
• Jerome Corsi
• Michelle Geller
• Orly Taitz
• Alan Keyes
• G. Gordon Liddy
• Jim Quinn
• Rose Tennant
• Chuck Norris
• And about half (depending on how you slice it) of the GOP.

So of course it's NO RIGHT WING OPERATION! Of course not.

That's just silly.

It will never end

If anyone thinks that President Obama's release of his long form certificate of birth will stop the birthers, think again. Twenty percent of the hits we got on this blog yesterday and so far today are people going to a post we wrote back in August of 2009. How did they get there? Apparently, when you google "obama birth certificate fake" and hit "Images" this comes up as the second image on that search:


It's a fake Kenyan Obama birth certificate -- one that Queen Birther Orly Taitz was shopping around in 2009.

Needless to say, the visitors who come to 2pj from that image don't stick around too long.

President Obama Releases Long Form Birth Certificate

For the birthers:


(Click to enlarge)


(Please hold on to your heads)
UPDATE: Jesus H Christ, Trump is on my teevee taking credit for this. Douchebag. Oh, God! He's saying we have to look at it and see if it's really "real" and now we can get back to the issues. Fucking douchebag. He's saying it's "amazing" that it's "finally materialized." He keeps saying he's honored.

UPDATE 2: Good Lord! Now Trump is pimping his teevee show.

(h/t to Talking Points Memo)

The GOP is The Birther Party

As much as I heartily employ some local conservative republicans' outright rejection of the birther conspiracy theory, I have to point out that the theory, such as it is, is going mainstream GOP.

From Chris Matthews:



He said:

A plurality of Republican voters, 47 percent, said they believed Mr. Obama, who was born in Hawaii, was born in another country; 22 percent said they did not know where he was born, and 32 percent said they believed he was born in the United States.

The numbers come from this CBS/NYTimes poll (though it's actually 45% and not 47% who "know" Obama wasn't born in the US).

That's still very close to 7 out of 10 republicans who don't know that the President of the United States was born in Hawaii.

Here's a thought: any Republican you meet on the street you should ask them if they're a birther, because chances are, they are.

Any of my Republican friends want to chime in here?

What a sad state of affairs for a once great political party.

Follow-Up On Teh Crazie Birther

World Net Daily (aka "Birther Central") has an exclusive on Theresa Cao - the woman who made a name for herself yesterday in the House Gallery.

The OPJ wrote this up yesterday.

From Birther Central:

The woman who burst out with "except Obama" when New Jersey Democrat Rep. Frank Pallone today read in Congress the Constitution's requirement that the president be a "natural born Citizen" says she felt compelled to let representatives know of the absence of proof for Barack Obama's eligibility.

Theresa Cao, who was arrested by Capitol police, given a court date and then released, told WND in a telephone interview after her release, while she was standing in front of the Hart Office Building near the Capitol, that the only hope for the United States is a return to the faith of the Founding Fathers.

And that direction, she said, is opposite from the one Obama is leading the nation, citing his "socialism," such as a nationalized health-care system and the takeover of private companies including banks, insurance companies and car companies.

Except he's not a socialist, he didn't nationalize the health-care system, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, and there is evidence of his being born in Hawaii. Official evidence. Even Speaker of the House John Boehner agrees:

[NBC's Brian] Williams noted that 12 Republicans are co-sponsoring legislation expressing concern about Mr. Obama's birthplace, and asked Boehner if he would be willing to say, "this is a distraction, I've looked at it to my satisfaction. Let's move on."

"The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there," the speaker responded. "That's good enough for me."

I suspect, however, that that won't be enough for teh crazie Cao:

"Literally if this question of the natural born citizenship, if this question does not get answered, then I am allowing a tyrannical dictator – the spirit of the anti-Christ, the new world order system that has their plans right this second to collapse the U.S. economy, and we know their plan, the new world order system's plan is to literally destroy humanity," she said.

She said "God made sure" that such a message "got out to every single American leader and every leader [now] knows the truth.

"He [Obama] has fought it not only for two years, not only has he fought it pre-election but historically all of his connections, every single connection [has been] blacked out."

Her description of the day's events was permeated with explanations of her belief that the God of the Bible is being abandoned by America, especially under Obama's rule because of his leanings toward "one-world" endeavors, through the United Nations and other channels.

"It's prophesied this new world order system will devastate America and the world, and Satan's plan is to take as many people to hell with him as he can," she said.

"God is saying, 'no way,'" she said.

There's a saying. You gotta dance with the one that brought ya.

These are among the folks who brought Boehner & Co. to power. And while he's willing to admit that the President was born in Hawaii, he's not willing to tell the birthers they are, in fact, wrong to believe otherwise:

Williams asked if Boehner would be willing to express that same message to the dozen Congressional Republicans who don't seem to feel it's good enough for them.

"Brian, when you come to the Congress of the United States, there are 435 of us," Boehner responded. "We're nothing more than a slice of America. People come, regardless of party labels, they come with all kinds of beliefs and ideas. It's the melting pot of America. It's not up to me to tell them what to think."

According to some recent poll data, a sizable chunk of the GOP are birthers:

On President Barack Obama’s birthday, a new CNN/Opinion Research released Wednesday shows 41 percent of Republicans believe Obama was “probably” or “definitely” born in another country.

The poll of 1,018 adults shows 27 percent of Americans believe the president was “probably” or “definitely” born in another country, compared with 71 percent who think he was born in the United States.

Among the 285 self-identified Republicans polled, however, the percentage who think Obama was born outside of the country spikes to 41 percent, with 57 percent believing he was born in the United States.

The GOP - Party of Teh Crazie.

Good Times

In part of what a NYT's editorial called "A theatrical production of unusual pomposity" the Constitution was read aloud in the House chamber today.

And, on cue:

An apparent member of the birther movement seated in the gallery of the House of Representatives on Thursday interrupted a reading of the Constitution. The woman yelled out "Except Obama, except Obama, help us Jesus!" as Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) read the "natural born citizen" clause of the Constitution.

Moreover, despite their claims to be reading the entire Constitution, House members are reading an amended slavery-free version of the US Constitution.

Good times.
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