Chris Hayes, Bill Keller and Understanding What The Romney/Ryan Ticket Really Means

It’s been both scary and incredibly frustrating watching so many Americans vote against their own well-being and the well-being of their neighbors. But it’s far from surprising: 8 years of George W. Bush, the rise of Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, even Ronald Reagan being considered one of our “great” presidents… There is a portion of America that simply does not follow what is going on. They just… follow. Their buttons are pushed and they react.

America has become a country overrun with greed. It is a testament to just how dangerous Capitalism can be when the failsafes are broken, when they are deemed “unnecessary.”

“What is good for me is right.”

Ayn Rand’s quoted statement that traced back to child murderer William Hickman (see HERE) seems to have become the American mantra. At least for a portion of the country. Now I know there are many, many well-meaning, truly good people who will be voting for Romney come November (assuming he gets the nomination–I’m still watching for a last minute Jeb Bush game-changer), but there can only be one reason for this:

Ignorance.

While I recognize that to be a rather harsh statement, I’m afraid there are many people out there who, if they knew the truth behind what it was they were voting for and what the repercussions would actually be, would vote quite differently given the proper information in its proper context. Take fear and misinformation out of the picture and what is revealed would scare even Ronald Reagan out of his own cement boots.

The other option for voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket would be straightforward selfishness and/or greed. Of course, that would probably release those folks from the category of “well-meaning.” I’m sorry to paint such a black and white picture here, but to vote Republican in this day and age, with what Conservative America is proposing and the path it has taken, there really aren’t any other believable reasons for voting that way. Okay, mental illness counts, too.

But in all seriousness, this is no longer about political ideologies. This is about a system that has broken down to allow the ruling class (yes, we have a ruling class) to change the rules in their favor. At the expense of every other citizen. This is not just a possibility, this is not hyperbole, this is what has happened and it will take educating more people, opening a few more eyes, and getting some seriously brave people out in the field to turn this around. And by “the field,” I mean the voting booths, peaceful protests, writing blogs, op eds, talking seriously to friends and family armed with facts and knowledge, doing whatever one can do to make sure as many people as possible understand exactly what it is they are voting for and who it benefits.

My conversations with conservatives of late has revealed a deep well of misinformation. For a group of people fighting against the horrors and corruption of big government, it’s amazing to see those very same people absorbing what they’re told by Fox News or those on the payrolls of the world’s wealthiest corporations as the word of God. With absolutely no desire to scrape the surface and actually find out if any of what they’re being sold told is based on any measure of truth! And the level of intransigence that goes along with their conviction that what they claim to know as truth is a reality worth fighting for is downright surreal. But alongside that surreality is a very frightening reality that these people could very well damage the lives of millions of people, including their own and those of their loved ones. In the age of Christian conservatism it comes across as downright ironic since their very own Messiah preached values that seem to be the polar opposite of what these people are voting for. Without realizing it, these folks have become the crowd encircling the crosses at Golgotha calling for blood and reveling in the death of three men whom the powers-that-be insisted were dangerous and unworthy to live.

For anyone who might have an interest in knowing just a tad more about what the Romney-Ryan package has to offer, I recommend Bill Keller’s write-up in the New York Times on that very subject.

And finally, I think Chris Hayes nailed it while on the Rachel Maddow show. His succinct and precise interpretation pretty much says it all:

You can watch the entire interview HERE.

Is America Worth Saving?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself many a time. In fact, I find myself asking it about the entire human race from time to time. And the answer’s always the same: I sure as hell hope so.

I’d like to believe that we can grow and mature, learn from our mistakes. But like children who never believe the lessons of their parents and have to find out for themselves, the hard way, we continue to shoot ourselves in the head and then complain that no one told us the gun was loaded.

Two days ago, Massachusetts voters shat on the memory of the late Ted Kennedy by not only choosing a Republican to take his still-warm seat, but possibly killing an already watered-down Health Care Bill that was Mr. Kennedy’s life mission and dying wish. Did this really happen? How quickly we forget the atrocities committed by the Bush Administration. The party and ideology that destroyed our economy by redistributing wealth from the middle-class to the wealthiest Americans and corporations while simultaneously throwing us into a trillion dollar war that we had no moral or social right engaging in. Every American soldier who lost their life in Iraq lost it for a lie. And there are over 3,000 of them. Not to mention the over 100,000 Iraqis killed in that same ongoing war. The American people were twice victimized. First by the 9/11 attacks, then by a president who took advantage of our fear and shock. And now we’re voting these people back into power? Really?

Apparently, it is quite a task for the average American to measure the effectiveness of a president like Obama who saved us from falling into the abyss of an economic depression. Perhaps it would have been better if we had fallen into that abyss so that Americans would then have some understanding of what Obama accomplished by pulling us out. But too many Americans don’t seem to be able to weigh what a massive accomplishment avoiding that depression was and is. Or how close we were to it and what that reality would have looked like. We are an undereducated, incurious lot. And we are easily led. Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Glenn Beck… They are all modern-day Joe McCarthys and legions of Americans are following them all over again.

All this said, Obama can certainly take a more definitive stand. Playing nice, it seems, gets little-to-nothing done. On the other hand, and I believe this is Obama’s logic, if we keep pushing our differing agendas in opposition to the other party, then we may find America in a damaging game of back and forth wherein one party is elected into office, disregards the other party’s beliefs and desires and forces its agenda no matter how severe (as the Bush Administration did from day one), and then the other party takes over again and reverses course until the first party takes control (again) and makes another u-turn. It’s a deadly circle that we could spin in for centuries without accomplishing a damn thing of consequence. Problem is, Americans only seem to respond to extremes. Subtlety is not taught in school and seems to float above the heads of many who miss the boat entirely and are lost and confused when someone points out what has been going on. They simply don’t believe it because they don’t have the tools to see it. We have societal and historical ADD. One year into the Obama Administration and hoards of Americans are already growing impatient and have forgotten the treacherous 8 years of lies, deaths and economic imbalance. Not to mention that we had a president on a religious Jihad all his own. From attempting to amend the constitution to conform to his Christian definition of marriage, to preemptively attacking Iraq in order to “erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

So as sad as it may be, it seems the only way forward is to either try and meet Republicans halfway, or make the firm decision to move forward regardless of their wishes while we still can; to get as much done now and hope some of it sticks through later administrations. The biggest problem with meeting Republicans halfway, it seems, is that they don’t appear to be interested. So far as I can tell, the game that’s being played is “oppose Obama at every turn.” The notion being that if Obama is truly successful at fixing our national health care disaster, then he will most certainly get re-elected. And perhaps another Democrat will come after him! And God forbid he should bring any of these wars to an end or actually strengthen the economy. Then the corporations and the high-powered bigwigs who live off the blood of the less fortunate won’t get what they so desperately want (and have grown used to). And those very powerful organizations and the people whose pockets they regularly line will suffer greatly. And they are not willing to let that happen. Even if that means denying the American people their basic rights or fulfilling their basic needs. Like health care.

So, these men and women and the corporations behind them scream foul and create illusions of collapse and spoil that strike at the hearts of our most frightened and ignorant until they take to the streets en masse spouting misconceptions and incredulous at the mere notion that someone might actually be attempting to better their lives. And the Independents who don’t believe in anyone but knew that they were tired of Bush start to tire of Obama as well until they’re voting us right back into the abyss we just barely managed to crawl out of. And then there’s the lazy Democrats who just don’t get themselves out there to vote or campaign with enough vigor or resilience. Or the Blue Dog Democrats who just seem to be Republicans under a different name.

Meanwhile, Obama is in danger of being neutered by asking us to rise to an occasion we simply may not be ready for. His attempt to bring the parties and American people together ends up looking to Democrats like he’s not willing to go the extra mile and really take on the forces at hand –essentially “just another politician”– and Republicans see it as a sign of weakness and an opportunity to pounce.

All the while, the world watches and prays that we, currently the most powerful nation in the world (with China fast on our heels), find ourselves in the midst of a growth spurt that finally moves us out of our infancy and propels us into the world of the mature and self-aware. In the meantime, we’re a nation that essentially still believes in Santa Clause, hopes he’ll show up, and then shoots anything that comes down the chimney.

Exporting Hate & Terror In The Name Of God

Sounds like something one might accuse Al Qaeda of. But what if it were suggested the United States of America were on a religious crusade all its own? Last year, former French President Jacques Chirac told the world that, while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq, then president George W. Bush appealed to their common faith in Christianity during a private chat. According to Chirac, Bush stated:

“Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

While this is old news by now and a quote I’ve referenced before, it seems to have been one-upped by a recent report that weapons maker Trijicon has been supplying high-powered rifle sights to the U.S. Army and Marines with coded references to specific Bible passages. One such reference on the gun sights is 2COR4:6, also known as Second Corinthian 4:6 of the New testament:

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

These “Jesus-encoded” sights are being used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. Oddly enough, U.S. Military rule prohibits proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan. The whole notion behind this rule was to prevent any country or individual from claiming the United States was on a religious “Crusade.” Well… it seems some, including but obviously not restricted to the president who led us into those very wars, were, indeed, on a religious crusade. So where does that leave us now?

The American people were lied to about WMDs, our own CIA directly misled Congress, we defied the United Nations, we angered and alienated much of the world with that defiance, we resorted to torture tactics we swore we would never use, we engaged in a preemptive strike against another country for the first time in our nation’s history, and over 100,000 human lives have been lost that would not have been otherwise… At what point do Americans realize that the Bush Administration turned the United States of America into a rogue nation and desecrated almost everything we have claimed to stand for? And still I see people finding reasons to support that same administration, all the while professing that President Obama is attempting to destroy our nation, trying to make us a socialist country, a totalitarian country, even a fascist country.

So while the largest corporations in the States get fat on the blood of Iraq, including Trijicon who have a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corp and even more to the U.S. Army, America’s own citizens have been tossed into a deep recession. And the president who has managed to prevent that recession from becoming a full-on depression, all the while trying to repair a deeply damaged health care system that doesn’t care for its own, has come under attack as a man who is trying to destroy this country and everything it stands for.

At what point do we heed the lessons and shame of Joseph McCarthy and the fear that drove that man and his many, many followers? At what point do we face up to the fact that our country and its citizens were lied to, led astray? At what point do we, as a nation, choose to enter into adulthood and face our own demons? When do we, as Dick Cheney would call it, “Man-up”?

A recent hearing in the U.K. on that country’s involvement in the war in Iraq revealed that the U.S. was already discussing plans to invade Iraq less than a month after George W. Bush took office. This was, if you haven’t already figured it out, long before the 9/11 attacks. These plans are well-documented in the Downing Street Memo transcribing the minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair’s senior ministers on July 23, 2002.

That same recent U.K. hearing also reportedly revealed that Blair lied to the public when he claimed that Britain’s objective in the invasion of Iraq was ‘disarmament’ and not ‘regime change.’

Too bad we haven’t yet had hearings of our own on this side of the Atlantic. Maybe it would open some of those tightly shut eyes still mourning the loss of the good Christian president who so valiantly protected our nation through what is known as the Bush Doctrine which includes a policy of “preventive” war which held that:

The security environment confronting the United States today is radically different from what we have faced before. Yet the first duty of the United States Government remains what it always has been: to protect the American people and American interests. It is an enduring American principle that this duty obligates the government to anticipate and counter threats, using all elements of national power, before the threats can do grave damage. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. There are few greater threats than a terrorist attack with WMD.

To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively in exercising our inherent right of self-defense. The United States will not resort to force in all cases to preempt emerging threats. Our preference is that nonmilitary actions succeed. And no country should ever use preemption as a pretext for aggression.

But what is it we’ve actually done? According to the above-mentioned U.K. hearing:

In the public record, there is a large amount of evidence that vividly illustrates Bush’s long-standing intent to invade Iraq, Bush’s willingness to provoke Saddam Hussein into providing a pretext for war, the fact that the Iraq war began with an air campaign almost a year before the March 2003 invasion and months before Congress approved the war, Bush’s widespread attempt to crush dissent and manipulate information to justify the lies he used to start the Iraq war and the lack of planning for the aftermath of the Iraq war as well as the lack of a fundamental understanding of the Iraqi society.

To further illustrate then President Bush’s “mission” as he saw it, I quote a passage from his 2003 State of the Union address:

“Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.”

Unfortunately, men like George W. Bush never seem to understand that what they see as the “right” way for America is not the only way. I’m not saying all nations shouldn’t be free, I’m saying that we, America, do not have all the answers and it is beyond arrogant to assume we do. It is downright criminal to take that misguided belief and stake human lives on it. Especially when that belief is weighed down by religious conviction; by a man and an administration with little understanding of the culture, people and religions of the countries they are invading. Many great nations before ours have fallen in pursuit of the very same fallacious ideologies that drove Mr. Bush and his followers.

But how do you get a country and its people to follow along on such a path? Author Naomi Klein wrote in her book The Shock Doctrine that the Bush Administration exploited  a “window of opportunity that opens in a state of shock, subsequently followed with a comforting rationale for the public, as a form of social control.”

For any country to grow, it must take a cold, hard look at itself. It must ask the difficult questions. We have an opportunity now to start fixing the deep damage that was incurred during the Bush Administration and the 9/11 attacks on our country. Both victimized the American people. Neither wound is anywhere close to being healed. But in taking that deep look, we might find that we–as abhorrent a notion as it is–may have temporarily become our own worst enemy and the exporters of the very thing we claim to be fighting against.

Lively Doesn’t Want Gays Killed, Just Eliminated

Scott Lively, the president of one of the most hateful organizations in America -Abiding Truth Ministries- has spoken out against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. A bill he, in essence, helped create.

“I suggested they liberalize the law, not to make it more [harsh]. What’s the gay agenda in Uganda? It’s the attempt to homosexualize the country like they did in so many other countries. … To change the moral foundation of the society, away from a marriage-based culture, to one of sexual anarchy.”

Well, it seems Mr. Lively’s outspoken opinion of homosexuals has rubbed off on Uganda’s lawmakers –who were already severely homophobic– to the point where they are proposing a bill that would, if passed, make Homosexuality punishable by a lengthy prison sentence or, in many cases, death.

So what was Lively doing in Uganda in the first place?

He was invited.

According to Lively himself:

“They were concerned about the attempts… by American and European gays, mostly men, who were coming into their country, messing with the young men in the country, and trying to influence their political and cultural policies.”

Lively visited Uganda to give a series of talks along with Don Schmierer and Caleb Lee Brundidge, two American evangelical Christians who are well known for their teaching that homosexuality can be “cured.”

According to Stephen Langa, who organized the Ugandan event, the purpose of these talks was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda.”

I guess they succeeded. And many lives may be lost as a result. Certainly many lives will be destroyed. And many will be directly linked to Mr. Lively’s “teachings,” despite his insistence that he does “not believe in incarceration for homosexuality.” Unfortunately, Lively’s assessment of his talks in Uganda is that “Our campaign was like a nuclear bomb against the ‘gay’ agenda in Uganda.”

According to Wikipedia:

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

These talks are widely considered to have been instrumental in the development of the Uganda Anti-Homosexual Bill which would:

“broaden the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda, including introducing the death penalty for people who have previous convictions, who are HIV-positive, or who engage in sexual acts with those under 18, introducing extradition for those engaging in same-sex sexual relations outside Uganda, and penalising individuals, companies, media organizations, or NGOs who support LGBT rights.”

So let’s take a look at Mr. Lively’s credits to see who else he’s been influencing lo these many years. In addition to heading the Abiding Truth Ministries –which it should be stated is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center– Lively was also the co-author of a book titled THE PINK SWASTIKA which suggested direct links between homosexuals and the Nazi Party. He is also the former state director for California’s branch of the American Family Association, which is an organization that promotes so-called conservative Christian values. Those values basically boil down to being anti-pornography, anti-gay, pro-life, and in favor of “traditional” marriage only. They also support deregulation of the oil industry and oppose the Employee Free Choice Act which, if passed, would “amend the National Labor Relations Act to establish an efficient system to enable employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to provide for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts, and for other purposes.”

The American Family Association defines itself as “a Christian organization promoting the biblical ethic of decency in American society with primary emphasis on TV and other media”

Lively also formed the anti-homosexual group Watchmen on the Walls based in Riga, Latvia, which supports conversion therapy and describes itself as “the international Christian movement that unites Christian leaders, Christian and social organizations and aims to protect Christian morals and values in society.”

Those Christian morals and values include anti-gay rallies wherein gays and lesbians are pelted with bags of excrement. A practice I’m sure Jesus would have approved of.

So why waste time writing about such lunatics as Lively and his associates? Because it’s people like Lively who help spread hatred, fear and gross misunderstanding. And in doing so, they have a direct negative impact on the lives of many human beings. This is the same reason I write about Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Glenn Beck, etc. Because, while they may only represent a fringe, folks should at least be aware of what is being said and how it is being heard.

And while I don’t know where Mr. Lively and friends claim to get their information about the “gay agenda” from, you can read about Mr. Lively’s agenda right here, in his own words and in crystal clear black and white.

From Lively’s DECIPHERING ‘GAY’ WORD-SPEAK AND LANGUAGE OF CONFUSION:

“If homosexuality is not innate, it must be acquired. And if it can be acquired, we dare not allow homosexuality to be legitimized to our children. If there remains any shadow of doubt as to the cause of homosexuality, we must err on the side of protecting our children. Indeed we must actively discourage them from viewing homosexuality as safe and normal, when in fact it is demonstrably neither safe nor normal. It bears noting here that normalcy is functioning according to nature or design. Normalcy is not based on popular opinion.

“…The truth about homosexuality is self-evident. Self-evident truths are not taught, they are revealed. Helping people overcome “gay” sophistry does not require teaching them new facts and figures or raising their level of intellectual sophistication. On the contrary, it requires a clearing away of the misinformation that obscures the simple reality of things.”

Silly Sarah: The Answer To Palin’s Coin Question

Last week, Sarah Palin raised her newest conspiracy theory while speaking at a Wisconsin Right To Life fundraising banquet. During her speech (in which she also managed to continue her insistence on the existence of Health Care death panels), Palin suggested something was amiss of late in Washington, citing the move of “In God We Trust” to the edge of American coins.

“Who calls shots like that?” Palin demanded. “Who makes decisions like that? It’s a disturbing trend.”

Turns out, George W. Bush and a Republican Congress. Despite Palin’s none-too-subtle subtext in suggesting this “disturbing trend” was a direct result of the Democratic White House trying to secularize our American money, it seems the new coin design was commissioned in 2005 under a Republican controlled Congress. It was then approved by President George W. Bush.

Ooops.

Again.

Born Again Bush Staved Off Apocalypse With Human Lives & American Tax Dollars

According to the Council For Secular Humanism and a host of other sites, it seems that back in 2003 then American president George W. Bush told then French president Jacques Chirac that:

“Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

According to Chiraq, these were the words Bush used during a top-secret phone call asking Chiraq to send in French troops to aid American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

As history reveals, not only did Chiraq refuse Bush’s request, but openly opposed the war, resulting in America’s juvenile response of changing the name French Fries to Freedom Fries.

Chiraq stated that he was confused by Bush’s phone call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”

It seems Bush’s desire to bring other countries into his twisted evangelical fervor didn’t end there. Apparently, a few months after his call to Chiraq, Bush attended a summit in Egypt and told the Palestinian foreign minister that he was “on a mission from God” to defeat Iraq.

According to Wikipedia:

The tradition of Gog and Magog begins in the Bible with the reference to Magog, son of Japheth, in the Book of Genesis and continues in cryptic prophecies in the Book of Ezekiel which are echoed in the Book of Revelation and in the Qur’an. The tradition is very ambiguous, with even the very nature of the entities differing between sources. They are variously presented as men, supernatural beings (giants or demons), national groups, or lands. Gog and Magog occur widely in mythology and folklore.

…Gog is “of the land of Magog” situated in “the remotest parts of the earth.” …The lands mentioned all lay north of Israel… Gog’s role… is as commander of a massive assault force that applies tremendous pressures designed to crush God’s people as though they were in a vise. Israel is described as “dwelling in the center of the earth.” Ancient Israel was located at a central point as regards the Eurasian and African continents but also was the center of worship of the true God and was counted by him as “the apple of his eye.” (De 32:9,10; Zech 2:8) God draws Gog out by restoring and prospering his own name people, who seemingly have no protective “walls” to defend themselves. This incites Gog to manifest his malevolence toward them and attack.

If any of the above statements regarding Bush’s comments to Chiraq are true, that will certainly be revealed soon. If it’s a lie, that too will come out. The last thing I want to do is start a Lou Dobbs-like wave of misguided hysteria. Though this hysteria would be about 6 years too late. And I have to say, it’s no secret that Bush was “born-again” and this is far from the first report claiming Bush believed he was on a mission from god. However, if his comments to Chiraq are true, then we can see once again the serious dangers of mixing politics and religion and allowing evangelical crazies into positions of political power. I personally do not want to be “saved” by the likes of Bush or Palin or any of these none-too-bright but fervently religious types.

And Bush’s apparent staving off of Gog and Magog has cost thousands upon thousands of human lives, created political tensions around the globe, brought America to its first-ever preemptive attack of another country, and near destroyed the world economy. A small price to pay, I’m guessing, for preparing for the Rapture, The Apocalypse, the New Age, whatever name you want to give it. But wherever George Bush will be going when judgement day does arrive… I want to go to the other place.

Obama Birth Certificate History Lesson 101

According to the right-leaning World Net Daily:

If Lolo Soetoro [Obama's step-father] adopted Obama at age five or younger, then Obama would automatically have become an Indonesian citizen according to the country’s laws in the 1960′s, which stipulated any child aged five or younger adopted by an Indonesian father is immediately granted Indonesian citizenship upon completion of the adoption process.

Lolo Soetoro could have adopted Obama in Hawaii, although such an adoption would not have necessarily been recognized by Indonesia.

Indonesian law at the time also did not recognize dual citizenship, meaning if Obama became Indonesian, then as far as that country was concerned, his U.S. citizenship was no longer recognized by Indonesia. But U.S. law would still recognize Obama as an American citizen.

If Obama indeed possessed Indonesian citizenship as a child, it is unlikely he retains such citizenship. The country’s bylaws require any Indonesian citizen living abroad for more than five years to formally declare his intention to return, otherwise risk losing his citizenship status.

Indonesian school registration for “Barry Soetoro” (AP photo)

According to CNN:

Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, from 1967 to 1971.

According to MSNBC:

Obama, who was born in Hawaii, moved to Indonesia at age 6 to live with his mother and stepfather, attending schools in the country until age 10, when he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents.

According to WikiAnswers:

Starting at age 6, Obama attended a Catholic school in Indonesia. At age 8, he attended a public school in Indonesia, nominally a Muslim school, which is where the “Muslim” tempest in a teapot comes form.

According to the Washington Post:

Birthers who commented on our Thursday posting generally continued to claim that Obama has not produced a true birth certificate, and that the document he produced last year is a fake.

They’re also fixated on the type of birth document issued by the Hawaiian government, which is called a “certification of live birth.” They refuse for some reason to believe that a certification is the same as a birth certificate.

By all rational accounts, the two documents are most certainly one and the same, only with different titles…

A certification of live birth is the “official birth certificate” of Hawaii, according to the state’s Department of Health spokeswoman, Janice Okubo. And the nonpartisan, nonprofit Factcheck.org, which examined Obama’s original birth certificate last year at the president’s campaign headquarters in Chicago, concluded, “It meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship.”

To those who continue to speculate Obama’s birth certificate was destroyed, Hawaiian health department officials answered that point of hysteria as well this week.

“We don’t destroy vital records,” Okubo said. “That’s our whole job, to maintain and retain vital records.” State health officials said the original birth certificate, the same one reviewed by Factcheck.org, is back in storage in Hawaii.

But still, the birthers ask, why won’t President Obama release his original birth certificate and possibly bury the issue once and for all?

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent answer to this question: “Why should he? The demand has no basis in principle and would have no practical benefit.”

James Taranto writes in his “Best of the Web” column, “Obama has already provided a legal birth certificate demonstrating that he was born in Hawaii. No one has produced any serious evidence to the contrary. Absent such evidence, it is unreasonable to deny that Obama has met the burden of proof. We know that he was born in Honolulu as surely as we know that Bill Clinton was born in Hope, Ark., or George W. Bush in New Haven, Conn.

“The release of the obsolete birth certificate would not ‘resolve the issue’ to those for whom it is not already resolved. They claim without basis that today’s birth certificate is a fake; there is nothing to stop them from claiming without basis that yesterday’s is as well.”

According to the Los Angeles Times:

CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein told staffers of “Lou Dobbs Tonight”… that CNN researchers had determined that Hawaiian officials discarded paper documents in 2001. Because of that, Obama’s long-form birth certificate no longer exists and a shorter certificate of live birth that has been made public is the official record, they reported.

“It seems to definitively answer the question,” Klein wrote in the e-mail, first reported by the website TVNewser. “Since the show’s mission is for Lou to be the explainer and enlightener, he should be sure to cite this during your segment tonite. And then it seems this story is dead — because anyone who still is not convinced doesn’t really have a legitimate beef.”

According to World Net Daily:

Directly contradicting CNN chief Jon Klein – who ordered host Lou Dobbs to quit discussing President Obama’s birth certificate – the Hawaii Department of Health affirmed that no paper birth certificates were destroyed when the department moved to electronic record-keeping.

“I am not aware of any birth certificate records that have been destroyed by the department,” Janice Okubo, public information officer for the Hawaii DOH, told WND. “When the department went electronic in 2001, vital records, whether in paper form or any other form, [were] maintained. We don’t destroy records.”

Okubo affirmed that beginning in 2001, all vital records, including birth records, moved to electronic formats.

“Any records that we had in paper or any other form before 2001 are still in file within the department,” she insisted. “We have not destroyed any vital statistics records that we have.”

According to USA Today:

Hawaii‘s health director reiterated Monday afternoon that she has personally seen Obama’s birth certificate in the Health Department’s archives:

“I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago….”

According to Leonard Pitts Jr. in the Miami Herald:

My daughter was born in Los Angeles County on Sept. 4, 1990. I know this because I was there. Should that not be proof enough, I also have her birth certificate.

We requested it years ago and received a document that looks nothing like the ones I have for my folks, with names and parentage typed in tiny boxes. By contrast, this was a computer-generated abstract with my daughter’s data neatly printed on it. We asked why we couldn’t get a “real” birth certificate and were told this one “is” real; this is how they do it now. Indeed, the inscription on the certificate proclaims: “This certified document is a true abstract of the official record filed with the Registrar-Recorder.”

We used that document to get my daughter’s Social Security card, so I figure a “true abstract” is good enough for the federal government. But evidently, it’s not good enough for Stefan Cook, Orly Taitz, Rush Limbaugh, Philip Berg and Lou Dobbs.

Barack Obama, you see, has a birth certificate much like my daughter’s, documenting his birth in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961. He’s made it available online, just a Google search away.

According to the right-leaning National Review:

The mission of National Review has always included keeping the Right honest, which includes debunking crackpot conspiracy theories. The theory that Obama was born in Kenya, that he was smuggled into the U.S., and that his parents somehow hoodwinked Hawaiian authorities into falsely certifying his birth in Oahu, is crazy stuff. Even Obama’s dual Kenyan citizenship is of dubious materiality: It is a function of foreign law, involving no action on his part (to think otherwise, you’d have to conclude that if Yemen passed a law tomorrow saying, “All Americans except, of course, Jews are hereby awarded Yemeni citizenship,” only Jewish Americans could henceforth run for president).

In any event, even if you were of a mind to indulge the Kenyan-birth fantasy, stop, count to ten, and think: Hillary Clinton. Is there any chance on God’s green earth that, if Obama were not qualified to be president, the Clinton machine would have failed to get that information out?…

The fundamental fiction is that Obama has refused to release his “real” birth certificate. This is untrue. The document that Obama has made available is the document that Hawaiian authorities issue when they are asked for a birth certificate. There is no secondary document cloaked in darkness, only the state records that are used to generate birth certificates when they are requested…

What Obama has made available is a Hawaiian “certification of live birth” (emphasis added), not a birth certificate (or what the state calls a “certificate of live birth”). The certification form provides a short, very general attestation of a few facts about the person’s birth: name and sex of the newborn; date and time of birth; city or town of birth, along with the name of the Hawaiian island and the county; the mother’s maiden name and race; the father’s name and race; and the date the certification was filed. This certification is not the same thing as the certificate, which is what I believe we were referring to in the editorial as “the state records that are used to generate birth certificates [sic] when they are requested.”

To the contrary, “the state records” are the certificate. They are used to generate the more limited birth certifications on request. …these state records are far more detailed. They include, for example, the name of the hospital, institution, or street address where the birth occurred; the full name, age, birthplace, race, and occupation of each parent; the mother’s residential address (and whether that address is within the city or town of birth); the signature of at least one parent (or “informant”) attesting to the accuracy of the information provided; the identity and signature of an attending physician (or other “attendant”) who certifies the occurrence of a live birth at the time and place specified; and the identity and signature of the local registrar who filed the birth record…

There’s speculation out there from the former CIA officer Larry Johnson who is no right-winger and is convinced the president was born in Hawaii that the full state records would probably show Obama was adopted by the Indonesian Muslim Lolo Soetoro and became formally known as “Barry Soetoro.” Obama may have wanted that suppressed for a host of reasons: issues about his citizenship, questions about his name (it’s been claimed that Obama represented in his application to the Illinois bar that he had never been known by any name other than Barack Obama).

According to Politifact:

On Oct. 31, 2008, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii Department of Health, issued this statement: “There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.

“Therefore I, as director of health for the state of Hawaii, along with the registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.

“No state official, including Gov. Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the state of Hawaii.”

Even the governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, a Republican who at the time was stumping for John McCain, said it was on the up-and-up…

The new argument goes like this: Obama never published his “Birth Certificate” (a “Certificate of Live Birth”) on the Internet; what he posted was a “Certification of Live Birth,” what WorldNetDaily describes as “a ‘short-form’ document that is generated on-the-spot and based on what is contained in a computer database at the time it was printed out.”

Some on the Internet speculate that the original “long form” — which might include the hospital where he was born as well as the attending physician — might show Obama was foreign-born and ineligible to be president, but that that wouldn’t show up on the “short form.”

Moreover, WorldNetDaily claims even the state of Hawaii doesn’t accept “Certification of Live Birth” as proof that an individual was physically born in Hawaii.

They point to a policy from the Hawaii Department of Home Lands, which stated on its Web site:

“In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.”

That’s actually a misnomer, said Lloyd Yonenaka, a spokesman for DHLL. In order to be eligible for their program, you must prove that your ancestry is at least 50 percent native Hawaiian. And when he says native, he means indigenous. They don’t even care if you were born in Hawaii. They use birth certificates as a starting point to look into a person’s ancestry. Very different.

Here’s what the DHLL site says now: “The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands accepts both Certificates of Live Birth (original birth certificate) and Certifications of Live Birth because they are official government records documenting an individual’s birth. The Certificate of Live Birth generally has more information which is useful for genealogical purposes as compared to the Certification of Live Birth which is a computer-generated printout that provides specific details of a person’s birth. Although original birth certificates (Certificates of Live Birth) are preferred for their greater detail, the State Department of Health (DOH) no longer issues Certificates of Live Birth. When a request is made for a copy of a birth certificate, the DOH issues a Certification of Live Birth.”

When we spoke to a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health, she said too much was being made of the difference between the so-called “long” and “short” forms.

“They’re just words,” said spokeswoman Janice Okubo. “That (what was posted on the Internet) is considered a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii.”

“There’s only one form of birth certificate,” she said, and it’s been the same since the 1980s. Birth certificates evolve over the decades, she said, and there are no doubt differences between the way birth certificates looked when Obama was born and now.

“When you request a birth certificate, the one you get looks exactly like the one posted on his site,” she said. “That’s the birth certificate.”

As for the theory that Obama’s original birth certificate might show he was foreign-born, Okubo said the “Certification of Live Birth” would say so. Obama’s does not. Again, it says he was born in Honolulu.

We have one more thing. We talked to reporter Will Hoover, who wrote a well-researched story for theHonolulu Advertiser on Nov. 9, 2008, about Obama’s childhood years in the the Aloha State. It ran under the headline “Obama Slept Here.”

In researching the story, he went to the microfilm archives and found the birth announcement for Obama. Actually, he found two of them, one in his Honululu Advertiser on Aug. 13 , 1961, and in theHonolulu Star-Bulletin the next day . They both said the same thing: “Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Highway, son, Aug. 4.”

But here’s the thing. Newspaper officials he checked with confirmed those notices came from the state Department of Health.

“That’s not the kind of stuff a family member calls in and says, ‘Hey, can you put this in?’” Hoover explained.

Take a second and think about that. In order to phony those notices up, it would have required the complicity of the state Health Department and two independent newspapers — on the off chance this unnamed child might want to one day be president of the United States.

According to U.S. News And World Report:

Dixie may once have been the so-called land of cotton, but it has become the cradle of creeping Birtherism. According to a new poll from Research 2000 (commissioned by Daily Kos), a majority of Southerners either believe that Barack Obama was not born in the United States (23 percent) or are not sure (30 percent). Only 47 percent of Southern respondents believe Obama was born in the USA. By contrast, 93 percent of Northeasterns said yes, he was born here, 90 percent of Midwesterners did and 87 percent of Westerners.

Wow.

And while 93 percent of Democrats say he was born in the country and 83 percent of Independents, the figure is only 42 percent for Republicans. A majority of Republicans either believe he was born abroad (28 percent) or don’t know (30 percent).

According to Politico:

In short, the problem faced by today’s conservatives is that there is no one of sufficient stature, and no group of serious political operatives, to tell the “birthers” to cut it out — to disown them as they deserve to be disowned. It’s a sad state of affairs. The entire political process suffers as a result.

According to Bill Maher:

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve all been laughing heartily at the wacky antics of the “birthers” — the far-right goofballs who claim Barack Obama wasn’t really born in Hawaii and therefore the job of president goes to the runner-up, former Miss California Carrie Prejean.

Also, when Obama was sworn in as president, he forgot to give his answer in the form of a question.

And yet, every week, the chorus of conservatives demanding to see his birth certificate grows. It’s like they’re the Cambridge police, Obama’s in his house — the White House — and they need to see some ID.

And there’s nothing anyone can do to convince these folks. You could hand them, in person, the original birth certificate and have a video of Obama emerging from the womb with Don Ho singing in the background … and they still wouldn’t believe it.

This isn’t a case of Democrats versus Republicans. It’s sentient beings versus the lizard people, and it is to them I offer this deal: I’ll show you Obama’s birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin’s high school diploma.

Sorry, couldn’t resist that last one.

Draw your own conclusions.

Racist Anti-Obama Sentiment Inevitable

Did anyone really think America could elect a half-black president and not see the racism inherent both here and around the world rear its ugly head? Well, what may seem quite discouraging may, in fact, be a good start toward moving beyond this ancient brand of intolerance. Allowing these backwards thinkers out into the light makes it easier to recognize and address the issues that create and sustain these misguided, fearful beliefs.

We as a race seem to be drawn to finding differences in one another. We seem to have a biological/social need to create “us” and “them”. More progressive thinkers are apt to study and understand the roots of such feelings and reactions and try to move beyond being victim to such desperate, small-minded attitudes. But there are many people the world over, quite possibly a majority, that do not think deeply enough or hold enough self-awareness to do much more than react to what is stirred within.

Now I know that sounds like I’m holding myself aloft and placing myself lovingly in the former category, but I too must fight off any prejudices and learn to understand my own actions and reactions. I am not without fault here. I am, like so many others, a product of the society and education my country has offered me. And while much has changed for the better during my lifetime, I am still a reflection of the world around me. I just try and see it as clearly as possible with eyes wide open. Or as open as I am capable of at this time.

On our own shores here in the States, we have attention-hounds like Glenn Beck who can’t seem to clearly separate what brings him a measure of celebrity and what is actually damaging and potentially life-threatening. His recent comments about Obama have no positive outcome. They are mired in hatred and self-importance and appeal–not so much to those who find his outrageousness amusing–but to those who actually believe what he says and desire to act on it.

Earlier this week on Fox and Friends, Beck claimed that Obama is “a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I don’t know what it is…” When confronted with the facts that Obama’s mother was white and that many members of his Administration are white, Beck replied:

“I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people, I’m saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.”

Of course anyone with half a brain can see that Beck is either just looking to stir the pot because it garners him lots of press, or he’s just plainly and simply an idiot with no common sense whatsoever. Either way, what’s clear is that this guy himself has some deep-rooted issues that would benefit greatly from some long and very intense therapy sessions. Let’s go back in time and confront little Glenn Beck and figure out where all this hatred and anger came from. Who was it that beat you up and made you such an angry person, little Glenny?

Then, of course, there’s CNN’s Lou Dobbs who appeals to the desperate “birthers” and their tired belief that Obama is not, in fact, an American citizen and is therefore a false president. Even though Obama has produced his birth certificate on more than one occasion and it has been verified by all those who need to verify and authenticate such things, these people and Mr. Dobbs himself keep calling for the President to produce that same certificate. I guess people really only hear what they want to hear.

Those who found themselves horrified and frightened by both the election and re-election of George W. Bush never stooped to such mindless levels in such a massive way as the Obama-haters have. Sure, there were some real crazies on the left fringe, but nothing as front and center as these fellows. One starts to believe that the right-wing itself is a lunatic fringe. But… in an attempt to not create an “us” and “them” I will state that there are enough smart, intelligent, forward thinking Republicans out there who do not support or endorse such comments and behavior. Just look at how many conservatives jumped ship and refused to follow McCain and Palin when they became the representatives of the most dangerous fringe elements of the right.

Now, these feelings are not reserved for Americans only. It was reported today that thousands of Jewish settlers in the West Bank have protested Obama’s request for a West Bank settlement freeze. According to the New York Times:

Rabbi Yigael Shandorfi, leader of a religious academy at the neighboring settlement outpost of Nahliel, said during the ceremony. “Our hope is that there will be roads, electricity and water.” The message to President Obama, he said, is that this is Jewish land. He did not use the president’s name, but an insulting Hebrew slang for a black man and the phrase “that Arab they call a president.”

But the slurs didn’t stop there:

Yitzhak Shadmi, leader of the regional council of settlements, said Mr. Obama was a racist and anti-Semite for his assertion that Jews should not build here, but Arabs could.

And one wonders why peace is such a difficult thing to achieve. Hatred and non-communication is so much easier. Strong emotions replace common sense and an ability to converse intelligently with a constructive goal to bring people together. It’s so much easier to point fingers and ride the wave of hatred and intolerance.

And I in no way mean to suggest that I am immune from it in my pointing it out in others. It’s simply an observation. And a concern. And I clearly have an intolerance of such behavior. An intolerance I must continue to address and learn to understand.

Cheney “Sleazy”, an “Abomination” And Just What The Doctor Ordered

Perhaps if Dick Cheney had done what George W. did and simply tried to disappear into the banality of  ex-presidential “suburban” life, history may have been kinder to them than they deserve. Lord knows we’ve seen some truly despicable people walk away with their reputations “softened” by the passage of time and an economic upswing. As Cheney himself has pointed out, Nixon was a prime example. 

But Cheney is doing both Democrats and history a favor: He’s not leaving well-enough alone. No, Cheney is still putting his foot in his mouth in glorious public fashion as if under some grand illusion that he is going to lead a movement and take back the country. And as he tries to rewrite history, he only manages to shine an even brighter light on the flaws, debacles and criminal acts that define his vice presidency and the Bush Administration itself. A fact which I’m certain must worry George W. and his family quite a bit. 

But who knows, maybe Cheney will be able to prove himself to be the man behind the curtain and assume full blame for the 8 years that nearly destroyed America while Bushy gains some sympathy as no more than a well-meaning, but none-too-bright tool. 

Only time will tell. 

In the meantime, former CIA special agent Jack Rice spoke on MSNBC stating about Cheney’s recent speech following President Barack Obama’s address at the American Enterprise Institute, Cheney “wrap[ped] himself in the flag with the Constitution in tatters at his feet.”  While MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell claimed Cheney’s speech was “as sleazy a presentation from a vice president as we’ve had since Spiro Agnew. It was a complete abomination.”

Go HERE to watch Cheney’s speech.

 

Danny Strong Wins Writers Guild Award For RECOUNT!!

Finally, actor/writer Danny Strong is not just nominated, but awarded a statuette for his incredible work on the HBO produced movie RECOUNT. Both a writer and producer on the project, Strong sold the pitch, researched for months and wrote what was one of the more engaging and important scripts of the year. RECOUNT chronicles the sad events that took place between election night 2000 and George W. Bush officially stepping into the shoes of President Elect. Given the dreadful 8 years we’ve all suffered under the Bush Administration, this is a story that needed to be told and Danny Strong and the capable team that worked to bring this big story to the small screen deserve all the recognition they get. And then some! And thank god the WGA recognized that there is a big difference between original screenplays  (RECOUNT), and screenplays based on other material (JOHN ADAMS). Seems the other Awards Shows this year couldn’t seem to tell the difference! 

Bravo, Danny Strong! Here’s to the next!