10 (or more) Things I hate About You

[Darius871]

I'm fairly sure he's said he hates on the Constitution Party too because they're so religious, whereas he's a godless heathen. A "small-c" constitutionalist could theoretically lie anywhere on the spectrum.

Darius, I hope you die in a plane crash, your family burns in a building, and someone you care for deeply dies from radiation poisoning. Too much for you? Oh sorry, I am a godless heathen. **** you and **** your zealot religious beliefs. Find the word that covers hate towards those without religion or not your religion and tack that onto your signature, because that is what you are.

He took my comment seriously, how cute.

[Dinner]

Read my sig.

[SlowwHand]

I don't just teach, it is just easier saying it that way. I am the corporate training and development supervisor, and I detail over to international recruitment. I conduct interviews

So, you're hiring? I taught a semester of One on One English for "at-risk" elementary students who primarily, although not exclusively, were children in homes where English wasn't the primary language.

[Guynemer]

zaku, I'm not kidding here.

All the birth certificate nonsense, and all the noise surrounding it, has been quite thoroughly debunked over and over and over again. There is no "there" there. Persisting to believe such utter nonsense is a sign of significant mental illness, akin to those who believe Bush ordered the September 11th attacks, or that the moon landing was faked.

I'd prefer to believe that you are a clever DL, as opposed to a raving loon. I'm an optimist.

[Ben Kenobi]

How has it been debunked?

I'm puzzled why Obama hasn't released the long form of his birth certificate, and why he's told Hawaii not to release it to anyone.

Plus he's changed the name of the hospital he was born at.

[loinburger]

Link shamelessly stolen from another forum. Summary: Birthers are a pathetic joke who will hopefully bring down the Republican party.

GOP Headache: The birther issue



When lawmakers return home for recess in August, they can expect to hear tough questions from constituents on the economy, health care and government spending.

But Republicans are preparing for something else: the birthers.

As GOP Rep. Mike Castle learned the hard way back home in Delaware this month, there’s no easy way to deal with the small but vocal crowd of right-wing activists who refuse to believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

At a town hall meeting in Georgetown, a woman demanded to know why Castle and his colleagues were “ignoring” questions about Obama’s birth certificate — questions that have been put to rest repeatedly by state officials in Hawaii, where the birth certificate and all other credible evidence show that Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961.

When Castle countered that Obama is, in fact, “a citizen of the United States,” the crowd erupted in boos, the woman seized control of the gathering and led a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. The video went viral; by Sunday, it had been viewed on YouTube more than half a million times.

And birthers say members should expect more of the same in the coming weeks.

“Absolutely,” says California resident Orly Taitz, the Russian-born attorney/dentist who has become a kind of ringleader for the movement. “It is a very important issue, one that politicians should have taken up a long time ago.”

Moments after speaking with POLITICO Saturday, Taitz posted a call to arms on her blog:

“I believe it is a serious concern and I hope that each and every decent American comes to town hall meetings with a video camera and demands action,” she wrote.

Having seen his colleague Castle come under attack, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) is taking no chances.

“Before I got back to Michigan before the break, we’ll go through it, so that we’re versed in it,” Hoekstra said recently. “Just like anything else, if you see a hot issue ... it’s sort of like, ‘Let me go take a look at this and see what the status is.’”

Hoekstra believes there’s no “compelling case” questioning Obama’s origins. But after talking to Castle about his town hall, he knows that he’d better be ready with an answer.

The trick: What do you say?

Of the various approaches a put-on-the-spot pol can take, each carries its own risk of alienating constituents. Pick up a pitchfork in the cause of this conspiracy theory, and you risk damaging your reputation in the mainstream while aligning yourself with a movement some regard as having racist undertones.

Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.), co-sponsor of legislation that would force candidates to show their birth certificates, was widely mocked after he told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that Obama is a U.S. citizen — “as far as I know.”

However, members who decide to challenge the conspiracy theory, as Castle did mildly, risk ticking off a shrill minority who can upend their events and then post the video on the Web.

And those who try to split the difference may find themselves getting doubly burned.

At a Wyoming town hall in April, birthers jumped on freshman Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis.

“I’m not questioning your concern,” Lummis told the crowd, according to the Wyoming Eagle Tribune. “I am questioning whether there is credible evidence.”

The congresswoman ended up asking for anyone who had “evidence” to send it to her.

At a walk-in meeting in Sen. Tom Coburn’s Washington office, birthers gave the Oklahoma Republican’s chief of staff nine pages of documentation in support of their claims. The group later billed the meeting a success on one of Taitz’s blogs.

But when asked about the meeting, Coburn spokesman Don Tatro said that the office was simply trying to be “polite” and that “it is possible to mistake politeness for agreement.”

According to his office, Colorado Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn has received 33 inquiries about Obama’s origins, with 10 coming in over the past week.



So far, Hoekstra hasn’t faced any such questions.

“When you’re in a state with 15.2 percent unemployment,” he said, “most people have other things on their mind than this.”

But as if to illustrate the touchiness of the subject, Hoekstra quickly added: “Not that this isn’t important.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) has also tried to find the elusive middle ground.

"They have a point," he said of the birthers last week. "I don't discourage it. ... But I'm going to pursue defeating [Obama] on things that I think are very destructive to America."

Inhofe put out a statement Monday clarifying his comment:

"The point that they make is the Constitutional mandate that the U.S. president be a natural born citizen, and the White House has not done a very good job of dispelling the concerns of these citizens," he said. "My focus is on issues where I can make a difference to stop the liberal agenda being pushed by President Obama."

Out-party politicians have long had to deal with conspiracy theorists on their side — the people who think that the Clintons killed Vince Foster or that the Bush administration helped orchestrate the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Twenty-five percent of my people believe the Pentagon and Rumsfeld were responsible for taking the twin towers down,” said Rep. Collin Peterson, a Democrat who represents a conservative Republican district in Minnesota. “That’s why I don’t do town meetings.”

But the birther phenomenon may present a bigger challenge — a potent blend of race and politics, fueled by conservative TV and radio pundits, and played out in a day when all that stands between a town hall meeting and Web omnipresence is a $100 flip cam.

Republican pollster Whit Ayers says that a member confronted with birther questions should immediately pivot the conversation back to big issues.

“You simply indicate that in a country where our fiscal policy is driving us toward bankruptcy, where we are wrestling with major issues of health care reform and fighting two wars for our safety, you don’t have time to deal with wild conspiracy theories,” he says.

That’s the approach House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana takes.

“On that issue, I’m pretty distinctive that the president is from Hawaii,” he said. “I just don’t know where he’s coming from on health care.”

Such a response might satisfy many, or even most, but Taitz says that until Obama is removed from office, America’s other problems cannot be addressed. The fact that a few members of Congress have taken up her cause, with 10 Republicans signing onto Floria Republican Rep. Bill Posey’s legislation to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, has only encouraged her to buckle down in the fight.

As Taitz sees it, Campbell, who represents her congressional district in Southern California, was moved to co-sponsor the “Birthers’ bill” for fear of people like her.

Campbell spokesperson Muffy Lewis flatly denied that being the case, saying the issue of Obama’s birth certificate is a low priority in the congressman’s district. Plus, Campbell has stressed that the bill would apply only to future candidates — and is really just about avoiding these kinds of controversies in the future.

“It really wasn’t as much about constituents as it was his own principles,” said Lewis. “He thought it was a common-sense bill. Castle had a major issue [in his district], but it hasn’t been much of an issue in ours.”

But Taitz said that lawmakers everywhere should be prepared to “resign or be removed” if they “do not have the guts to stand for the Constitution and this country.”

Asked whether Republican lawmakers should be “afraid” of the birthers, Taitz said: “I wouldn’t say the word ‘afraid.’ I think they should be willing to resign or be removed. That is what they should do. ... Resign if you do not have the guts to stand for the Constitution of this country.”

Taitz has made nine trips around the country to rally support for her cause. In March, she traveled to Washington to personally hand out packets of documents to senators in the Hart Senate Office Building. Additionally, she says she has sent documents by certified mail to each of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, arguing that Obama is “totally illegitimate to be president.”

While the movement could be “politically threatening for particular Republicans,” Taitz says that the GOP as a whole has a chance to gain from it if it takes the right course of action.

[chequita guevara]

As for his birth in the papers, I call bullsh*t until you provide said paper article. Not some link to a typed up copy posted online. I mean the headline itself, date of print, newspaper company, etc. Because this is the first time I have ever heard that and I am calling bullsh*t.

Look where the arrow is pointing (lower center). This is from the Honolulu Star Bulletin.



This is from the Honolulu Advertiser. Again, follow the arrow (lower left corner)



Are we through with this bull**** myth now?

[chequita guevara]

This is stupid logic.

So you think it's logical that people in Kenya would plant a story in both Honolulu newspapers announcing the birth of their son and their Hawaii address? Yeah.

[Imran Siddiqui]

That was probably some other son that Barack killed and stole his birthdate from

[chequita guevara]

Oh.

[Ben Kenobi]

In 1961 the Dunhams lived on Kamehameha Avenue, while Obama Sr. lived on 11th Avenue. The Lefforge family, including their 3 children under the age of seven were residing at the luxury home listed on Obama’s newly found birth announcement -- 6085 Kalanianaole Highway.

Would be great, except he never lived there.

[DaShi]

Look where the arrow is pointing (lower center). This is from the Honolulu Star Bulletin.



This is from the Honolulu Advertiser. Again, follow the arrow (lower left corner)



Are we through with this bull**** myth now?

Oh look at how blurry that is. That could be any Obama.

[Guynemer]

Et tu, Ben?

[Ben Kenobi]

Honestly, I don't know what to think, Guynemer.

If he were to show his long form birth certificate then he'd have proven that he was a natural born citizen of the US.

I was honestly shocked that you aren't required to submit a birth certificate in order to be qualified for office of the president.

It's usually not an issue, most presidents have been born of two american citizens and have lived their formative years in the USA. Obama's the only one I believe who has received education abroad.

[Guynemer]

:facepalm:

Dude.

Seriously.

He had to show his birth certificate to get a passport. To get on ballots nationwide. The birth certificate has been released.

This "long form" stuff is bull****. Hawai'i went paperless at the start of this decade. All birth certificates are now electronic. His birth certificate now looks exactly the same as every other person born in Hawai'i since 1900. The (Republican) Governor of Hawai'i has stated, again and again and again, that his birth certificate is legit.

Stop reading WND. Stop reading Free Republic. Stop reading Newsmax. Stop watching Lou Dobbs. Stop watching FOX News.

This is over. It had never really started except in those people too ****ing paranoid (and/or racist) to be trusted in the first place.

Jesus tap dancing Christ, even mother****ing Ann Coulter has disavowed the Birthers.

Get a grip. Now.