Via TalkingPointsMemo, the LA Times has a good article about newly elected Hawaii governor Neil Abercrombie’s efforts to combat birtherism. The NYT had a somewhat similar article a few days ago, and here was RedState’s response:
Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.
[…..]There’s still information that the public should know but does not know–information any employer would ask for and receive.
Where are the college transcripts? Did Barack Obama apply to Occidental College as a foreign student and did he live in foreign student housing? Did he apply to Columbia University as a foreign student? Did he apply to Harvard Law School as a foreign student? What types of student loans did he receive?
What was Barack Obama when he went to public school for several years (ages 6 to 10) in Indonesia? Did he become a citizen of Indonesia?
You can see where this is going: I’m not a birther, but reasonable people can wonder blah blah blah. Fire up the investigations!
David
Andy Martin to announce Bid for 2012 Presidential Race
“KING OF THE BIRTHERS” WILL CHALLENGE OBAMA’S ELIGIBILITY IN 2012
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/12/26/andy-martin-to-announce-bid-for-2012-presidential-race/
dr. bloor
I’m pretty reasonable and I still wonder about
how much blow Chimpy McCokehead hoovered up his nosethe specifics of W.’s military service during the Vietnam war. They’ll be investigating that, too, right?Ramalamadingdong
What employer wants to know about student housing?
Kay
I see the peril, but I’m glad he’s talking. Birtherism is personally offensive to me. Of all the ridiculous charges conservatives have leveled against Obama, this is the most corrosive and mean-spirited.
It goes to everything: their issues with his race (primarily, I think), their ideas of citizenship and who is “valid” and “invalid”, legitimacy of a President they didn’t vote for, so their whole comprehension of elections…I’m reluctant to crawl inside their crazy heads, but maybe we have to.
They simply don’t accept that this individual is President. Why is that?
SiubhanDuinne
@David #1: I’m pretty sure he can’t win the nomination, but if we’re very lucky, maybe he’ll be Sarah’s VP running mate.
Ross Hershberger
Birtherism is going nowhere but it’s a useful side show to keep the Obama haters’ attention fixed so they don’t drift away. Part of the strategy on the Right to maintain control over the underinformed but motivated crazies is to give them small scandals continuously to keep them on the boil. This suits that purpose because it’s basically impossible to disprove to their satisfaction and (with the exception of Taitz) costs nothing to keep going.
TomG
Honestly, these idiots make me laugh. They must think that if they actually succeeded in their effort to remove Barack Obama as president, all the laws, policies, and regulation they don’t like would magically reverse themselves or disappear. It HAS to be personal dislike of him (because he’s black, duh), because a second’s thought about Joseph Biden stepping into the presidency would show that nothing would really change that much.
As a non-conservative libertarian, I think that if you don’t like policies that have been put in place, you…um….fight those policies directly. But see, I also think that EVERY president in recent times has drastically curtailed our civil liberties and freedoms, so I don’t see a heck of a lot of difference between Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama (just to use the last 4 we had).
EDIT – also, too, what Ross H. said.
Mudge
Well, what have we here..moved goal posts again? From the right wing? Incredible.
The questions don’t even warrant a rebuttal. They are nonsensical and illogical.
Ross Hershberger
Maybe I’m just lazy but I think the Birther lies are unkillable and not worth responding to. They can’t do any harm so why not ignore them? Trying to refudiate this nonsense just gives the fools the idea that they must be on to something.
Dennis SGMM
OTOH:
Army “Birther” Terrence Lakin Sentenced to Six Months in Military Jail
It’s sadly ironic that Lakin went stupid when he had only three years left to complete his twenty.
Amir_Khalid
@Ramalamadingdong: It’s not so much student housing they care about, of course; they’re just desperate for evidence, any evidence at all, that Obama was processed for something as a foreigner.
Abercrombie is going to be attacked for his personal motive in the matter: he was friends with Barack Sr and Anne, and he wants to defend against what he calls an attack on their honor. It’s an honorable motive, certainly, but shouldn’t he just leave bad enough alone? To my knowledge Hawaii already has a law, occasioned by this very case, that allows its officials to ignore nuisance queries into someone’s personal records.
Dennis SGMM
@Ross Hershberger:
Good point: the difficulty in proving a negative (particularly when the standard of proof keeps rising) combined with the tenacious stupidity of the right wing suggests mockery as the best response.
maya
@Ross Hershberger:
Well, if you don’t respond quickly enough you can expect another multi-authored book by the Swift Birthcanal Gondoliers for Truth
JD Rhoades
@David:
Man, that’s some first class crazy, right there.
Villago Delenda Est
What we do know, and no one disputes this, is that Barrack Obama is:
1. A Democrat
2. Near
Both are more than enough reason for the vermin of RedState to throw conniptions.
Villago Delenda Est
What we do know, and no one disputes this, is that Barrack Obama is:
1. A Democrat
2. Near
Both are more than enough reason for the vermin of RedState to throw conniptions.
Elia
I can’t imagine anything being better for this country than for the Republican House to waste its time figuring out whether the President is one-a-dem-eeeeeelegals; who knows, it might cause them to forget about all of the other shit on their To Do list.
NorthernMNer
Just wanted to point out that no employer would ever ask, or be eligible to receive, information about college admissions applications or financial aid packages that a prospective employee might have received while a college student. That information is usually protected by the FERPA:
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html
But of course Red State has no interest in truth, only power.
geg6
WTF are these idiots talking about? Besides the fact that Obama was, is, and will always be an American citizen due to his birth in Hawaii, what employer EVER asks what kind of housing a college student lived in, or what loans he took out, or how he filled out his admissions applications?
Have any of these people ever gone to college? Do they even understand that we (the college staff who do admissions and financial aid) have to verify the information on admissions and financial aid applications? And have they ever applied for a job? Because in my varied and long career, no potential employer ever asked me about any of those things because THEY DON’T GIVE A SHIT.
The stupid really burns sometimes and this is one of them.
Dennis SGMM
@geg6:
You overlook the crucial difference between going to college and learning anything while you’re there.
Ross Hershberger
@NorthernMNer:
Two points:
1) FERPA is a great name for a law. Even better than TEFRA.
2) I wish I’d known this. I’d have saved all that worrying over employers seeing ‘Glee Club’ on my college transcripts.
Nellcote
@Amir_Khalid:
Honolulu Star Advertiser:
“The Health Department has used the law about six times, a department official said.
Some birthers, however, have skirted the law by changing their names in their requests or going online and asking blog readers to send in requests.
Fielding questions about Obama’s birth still takes a toll on the Health Department’s communication and vital-records offices, which are required by law to respond within 10 days.
At least two staffers spend an hour a day handling requests for Obama birth records, a department official said. They also have to interpret unclear or perplexing requests, sometimes seeking opinions from attorneys at the attorney general’s office and the state Office of Information Practices.
For example, some requests ask the state to provide a copy of the seal used on Obama’s certificate of live birth, said Cathy Takase, an Office of Information Practices attorney. The Health Department has responded by sending a pencil shading of the embossment, rather than the seal, which officials say could be misused for fraudulent purposes.
Takase said many questions about the seal come from one blogger with several aliases. This month the blogger asked the office to hold off on some of her requests because she was going to send a new request to the new Health Department director, Takase said.
“If you look at all the cases that we had, they were really only a handful of people, but they just made a lot of requests and very lengthy and ongoing kinds of requests,” Takase said.”
danimal
My takeaway from the RedState weaseling is that this will be a long two years.
Even when they admit they are being crazy, they throw enough crap in the air that everything smells of manure. Expect endless hearings over absolutely nothing. For two loooooooooong years.
geg6
@NorthernMNer:
And yes, you are correct. FERPA makes us keep all those things private, even from parents, let alone an employer.
HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist
@Amir_Khalid: No, they will suggest that Abercrombie is “on the take” and looking for political/financial favor.
Cat Lady
Isn’t Trutherism way more interesting? I don’t understand why Truthers are so quickly dismissed by left and right, when there’s so much more material there to mine, with way more implications. I’m no Truther, but I’m pretty much convinced WTC 7 was deliberately imploded. Maybe that does make me a Truther. In any event, I’d like to see way more discussion in the MSM about LIHOP and MIHOP than this easily discredited lame-o conspiracy theory held solely by racist nutjobs.
Bex
Kay@4
“The legitmacy of a President they didn’t vote for.” Nothing is legitimate to these people except what they believe. No one is entitled to disagree with their opinions. I have been in social situations with these types and they give no thought to shoving their political opinions down the throats of all and sundry, even though they have no idea what anyone else thinks, because given their hatred of Obama (and I agree with you it’s racial), they pretty much don’t care. They never see other people wincing when they get going on the latest birther theory or something equally stupid.
patrick II
The implications of the rationale of the large subset of birthers who object to the published Obama birth certificate as legally inadequate to support Obama’s citizenship because it is not an “original” or “long form” birth certificate has implications not just for Obama, but everyone born in the state of Hawaii. Since Obama’s birth certificate is the same form as is issued to all people born in that state if it is legally inadequate for Obama, then it is also inadequate for all people of Hawaiian birth. Which means they shouldn’t be able to get passports, or marriage certificates, or drivers liscenses. Perhaps we should blockade the entire state and deport all of the inadequately documented illegals there who are living false lives of imagined U.S. citizenship with invalid visas, marriage partners and drivers licenses.
Snayke
Exactly, Doug, they’re just asking questions. It is our patriotic duty to question our leaders, especially when they’re Democrats. The wingers didn’t say that the Clintons had Vince Foster killed, they merely asked.
But, you ask, why didn’t they ask “where are the WMD?” Not important. What’s important is that George Bush was a good man and would never lie to us, so if him or his sycophants said “they were shipped to Syria” without even the slightest bit of proof, you trusted them! Bush had all the qualities of a man you could trust: white, Christian, a comfortable Texas twang, loved clearing brush and the outdoors. This is all the information conservatives need.
dmsilev
I’m confused. If RedState is willing to stipulate that Obama was born in Hawaii, why is anything else at all relevant? He meets the eligibility requirements for President, and a (significant) majority of the electorate decided that they knew and liked enough about him to vote for him. Period.
Ok, I’m not really confused. It’s because RedState is trying to find any way possible to cast doubt on his legitimacy.
dms
Ross Hershberger
I think RedState is missing the bigger question: with roots in Hawaii, who ends up in Chicago politics? Seriously. Have you ever been to Hawaii in November? Chicago?
See my point? It just doesn’t add up.
Lysana
@patrick II:
Something about that has me wondering how that’d affect the natives as opposed to the whites, Japanese, and others… sovereignty the hard way? Or am I still waking up?
Joey Maloney
@Nellcote:
The Health Department could make their job a lot easier if they just required that every requestor verified their identity by including a certified copy of their long-form birth certificate.
Suffern ace
@Dennis SGMM: Bah. They’ve been to college. They just never have gotten a job from a job interview. When your dad hires you, he knows where you were living and what kind of loans you took out.
Nellcote
@Joey Maloney:
Or require the request be handwritten with a $25 processing fee.
Uloborus
@Cat Lady:
I figure it’s ’cause loonies are only an itty-bitty part of the liberal base, while they actually can control Republican primaries. In that sense, the media was right about Tea Jerkers. And as you just demonstrated, even the Dems who sign onto Truther theories rarely do so with the virulent certainty and obsession of your narcissist xenophobe.
Ross Hershberger
Know what shuts ’em up? Tell them that Bush’s FEC cleared him as eligible to run and ask them what Bush had to do with the birth fraud and why.
kay
@patrick II:
It’s not just that. The (single) person who may authenticate a birth record is the person appointed or elected to keep that record. That happened here. The state official charged with that duty authenticated the record, and that’s far, far more than they’d get in any ordinary court. The recordkeeper authenticated the record. Done. There’s no next question. It’s not like there’s some other person who is more legitimate. There’s just the one.
That wasn’t enough for conservatives, in Obama’s case, so it can’t be enough in anyone’s case.
It’s ludicrous. They’d be calling outside witnesses in every legal action that hinges on a birth record.
Anya
This is the most idiotic thing ever. Is that a common argument among birthers, or is this moron just pulling something out of his ass because he has nothing? It seems to me he’s either stupid with a very narrow worldview, or a cynical ass who knows his hateful readers. The better question would be, why would Barack Obama’s mother deprive her son of his citizenship in favor of a country he has no connection to whatsoever?
Joey Maloney
@Anya: Red State moron sez: She was fucking a n*gger; obviously there’s no depth beyond which she wouldn’t sink.
Uloborus
@Joey Maloney:
Undortunately – no, disgustingly – from my memory of the big, ugly birther craze that was EXACTLY what they were barely not saying.
Joey Maloney
@Uloborus: Of course that’s what they were barely not saying publicly. They weren’t restraining themselves when they were among themselves, or thought they were just among themselves.
No bigger “race traitor” in their tiny little minds than a white woman who likes black dick. Books have been written about the twisted psychosexual outlook that betrays.
Anya
@Joey Maloney: I wonder if his dad was Stanley Dunham Jr. and his mom was the Kenyan, anti-colonial radical, would we be discussing all of this nonsense?
Jay in Oregon
@Dennis SGMM:
Meh. I’m OK with a lunatic birther not having to be forced to suckle on the government teat for the rest of his days.
patrick II
@Lysana:
I was demonstrating what would be the conclusion of the birther’s assertion to demonstrate it is not logical. Working out all of the implicative fine details resulting from such an illogical premise is not necessary to my broader point that birthers are essentially incoherent.
Have a cup of coffee and enjoy the rest of your day.
asiangrrlMN
@Jay in Oregon: Agreed. He went batshitcrazy on his own. So sorry he had to suffer the consequences for it. Jackass.
Roger Ebert twitted this on the Twitter. I immediately re-twit it. I know it won’t do any good, but I do think shining a light on the nature of their hostility is a good thing.
Dennis SGMM
@Jay in Oregon:
I’m not sympathetic, the man took careful aim and stomped on his own dick – probably against the advice of his CO and everyone else who knew him.
I did think that it was ironic that all he had to do was finish his 20 and he could have been any kind of lunatic and still collect his retirement pay.
Nick
@Anya: \
He’s a Republican, so the answer is…both
Anya
@Dennis SGMM: The great wingnut welfare talk circuit awaits.
@Nick: True!
matt
gonna have to call BS on this part:
‘information any employer would ask for and receive.’
‘What was Barack Obama when he went to public school for several years (ages 6 to 10) in Indonesia?’
El Cid
I hope Obama doesn’t send his Kenyonesian agents to kill my mother some night soon. I know she’s older and needs help with her heart condition, even though she’s been in great condition for 20 years since they bypass, but since we have all these budget problems they have to save somewhere.
Bubblegum Tate
@Snayke:
And they get really pissed off if you call them birthers! Which, let’s face it, is funny.
wes
and guess what, that makes him an american citizen.
Paul in KY
@Dennis SGMM: I know! Isn’t that great irony?
binzinerator
@Kay:
Black man, white woman, black baby.
Simple as that.