You think some of those who deny Obama’s eligibility sound a little crazy?
Seems to be an accurate perception. From The Oregonian (via OregonLive.com):
A Springfield blogger is accused of threatening the life, limbs and lower alimentary canal of a Secret Service agent.
James T. Cuneo, 43, was indicted Thursday on charges of making a series of threats against Special Agent Ronald Brown in the course of his official duties.
This was strange turnabout for Brown, whose job in the agency’s Presidential Protection Division is mainly to thwart threats against the commander in chief. For the first time in his 15-year career, Brown wrote in federal court papers, someone was repeatedly harassing him.
There’s a difference between a dog on a bone and a psychotic; some of the Obama denialists appear to have blurred the difference. Cuneo’s complaint appears to revolve around the same issue that set off Texas Darlin’ and a few dozen others. Cuneo escalated the thing; let’s hope no others do the same.
On Oct. 16, Brown and Springfield police detectives dropped in on Cuneo to chat about threats he had allegedly made about Google executives on his Internet blog: walkndude.wordpress.com. (WordPress has taken the site offline for violation of its terms of service.)
“Cuneo was extremely belligerent, refused to answer questions and became increasingly threatening,” Brown wrote in an arrest affidavit. “We left the driveway of Cuneo’s residence without further incident.”
Cuneo then began to phone the Secret Service office in Portland, threatening Brown and others, the government alleges. “Cuneo,” Brown wrote, “seems to think that we are aiding and abetting the ‘illegal U.S. President’ and that he and others need to arrest us for not doing our job.”
Brown says Cuneo phoned him in January and, with a colorful series of expletives, threatened him with physical harm, including execution by hanging, electric chair or firing squad. Those threats — and Cuneo’s history of violence — concerned federal officials, according to Brown’s affidavit.
Time to get back to real issues. 2010 is around the corner, 2012 is not much farther.
And, by the way, a federal judge in the District of Columbia issued an order dismissing one of the many nuisance suits filed by the denialists (styled Hollister v. Soetoro) , stating clearly that the suits are nuisances and asking for a showing of why sanctions under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure should not be applied. In short, the judge has ruled that the case against Obama’s eligibility is so rank and utterly without substance that any lawyer of average intelligence and sound mind should know better than to trouble a court with it. I think this is from the court’s order:
Because it appears that the complaint in this case may have been presented for an improper purpose such as to harass; and that the interpleader claims and other legal contentions of the plaintiff are not warranted by existing law or by non-frivolous arguments for extending, modifying or reversing existing law or for establishing new law, the accompanying order of dismissal requires Mr. Hemenway [the attorney of record] to show cause why he has not violated Rules 11 (b) (1) and 11 (b) (2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and why he should not be required to pay reasonable attorneys fees and other expenses to counsel for the defendants.
Crazier fringes of the anti-Obama guild claim that a letter from Obama’s attorneys asking that the suit be dropped is “threatening.” It’s not threatening to tell the schoolyard bully to straighten up. How much ozone have these people depleted?
Update: Yes to Democracy also carries news on the March 24 action by Judge Robertson. When do the denialists finally wake up, smell the coffee, smell the stale beer cans, pinch themselves, take a shower and get on with life? So, to sum up: A judge in Washington, D.C., has dismissed the suit and called the bluff of the plaintiffs and stealth plaintiffs; Huffington Post revealed the financial stake of WorldNet Daily in continuing to finance the suits, and in pushing the suits improperly; and a federal prosecutor won an indictment of a blogger who started rumbling about taking violent action in favor of the Birthers, and who failed to heed warnings to tone down his vitriol. Have the birthers figured it out yet?
Tip of the old scrub brush to Micah.
Resources:
- Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, from LII at Cornell University; Wikipedia on FRCP generally; a lengthier explanation at The Journal of the Legal Profession (which I’ve never heard of before)
- Real Democracy, on the dismissal of the Hemenway/Berg suit
- The Peoples Forum, “The Berg Smackdown”
- Yes to Democracy, with links to the order and other commentary
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] Anti-Obama blogger indicted for threatening Secret Service agent […]
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Nick Kelsier Says:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”
It very definitely grants citizenship to anyone born on US soil as long as they are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. The intent of the 14th Amendment was to secure citizenship for the newly emancipated slaves after the Civil War. The way that it is phrased does nothing to clear up the definition of a “Natural born citizen”. Had it been intended to do so it might have read something like this:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. The former being Natural born citizens, and the latter being naturalized citizens.”
The term “Natural born citizen”, is used only once in current law. It seems to me that it has been purposefully avoided. For a short time in the Naturalization Act of 1790, it was written:
“the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.”
In 1795 the Act was revised to read:
“shall be considered as citizens of the United States.”
The term “natural born” was omitted for some reason. Certainly in the late 1700s, enough of the original authors of the Constitution were around to assume that they had input on both the 1790 and 1795 Acts. Were they the ones who influenced the original inclusion of the phrase or were they who removed the phrase, or was it just by unintentional omission? Unfortunately there is no recorded documentation as to why the phrase was omitted in the 1795 version. There is another phrase that is used after this point in time. The phrase “citizen at birth”, as used in the Immigration and Nationality Act for example. Now some contend that the two equate, but others think that all natural born citizens are citizens at birth but not all citizens at birth are natural born citizens. It is all semantics and in my opinion, that’s why a ruling or an amendment is needed to set it straight.
Since the term “Natural born citizen” is not further defined, there are some who believe it takes both jus soli (right of soil) and jus sanguinis (right of blood) in order to make a “Natural born citizen”. Bobby Jindal just doesn’t have the jus sanguinis part. I see no harm in ensuring that the letter of the law is followed, as soon as we figure out what that is.
We all hold what we believe in to be the truth, but in using the same phrase “what we believe in”, we do not all mean the same thing. The truth is simple. It is nothing more than a collection of verifiable and indisputable facts. It is cold and lacking in passion. It is rigid and unyielding. It is uncaring of anything but itself. What we believe in, is what drives great passions from within us, but it can be based on truths and it can be based on falsehoods. It can be the force that creates great nations and unfortunately by the same power, the one that would destroy them. Law, is the issue of truth. It is what we bind ourselves with in our belief as to what is true. Justice, is the instrument of truth. It is what we rely on to uphold and enforce our beliefs. ?Truth, Law, and Justice? are at the very basic premise of our government and must be preserved for the sake of our nation.
loucon
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And yes, Obama was born in Hawaii. Therefor the claims that he’s ineligible to be US President are nothing more then bullpuckey. Glad we agree on that.
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US Constitution, 14th Admendment, 1st Paragraph:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The relevent part being “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”
Tell me Loucan, where in that does it say “But this does not apply to children born to non-citizen immigrants”?
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Der Kaiser Says:
If there is a requirement for both parents to be citizens for NBC, what about a mother who conceives due to a sperm donor? What if the biological father, not involved in the child’s life at all, unknown to the mother and child, was not actually a US citizen at time of conception? Should we make that distinction? Is that person less a natural born citizen than a person who has parents who was naturalized but after birth went back to the parents homeland and grew up there?
At the time of the drafting of the constitution, a lot of these scenarios couldn’t have been considered. The intent of the framers was to protect the nation by setting standards for the presidency. 200+ years later, these standards may not appear as solid to us as they did to the original authors. I believe that continuous residency should be the primary consideration as to qualifications for the job. As to how long, I think they got that part about right. I don’t see the reasoning for having two statures of citizenry. As for as I’m concerned if a person lives in this country for a reasonable period of time and proves himself to his constituency, he should be allowed to run for any position he chooses, but that is not the law, at least for the position of POTUS and VPOTUS. Which brings up an interesting scenario. If for whatever reason the president and vice-president were unable to fulfill the duties of their offices the next person in line would be the Speaker of the House, but they need not be a NBC to hold that title. I would assume they would just go down the order of presidential succession until one was found who met the qualifications.
Have you had a chance to read that article from the Law Review?
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Nick Kelsier Says:
Can Bobby Jindal become US President? Yeah..he was born in Louisana. Hence he is a Natural/Native born Citizen.
Do the rest of you concur with Nick on this? Neither of Bobby Jindal’s parents were citizens at the time of his birth. So based soley on jus soli, he is recognized as a NBC.
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You mean other then the implication you were creating by bringing up Calero?
Calero may have been on the ballot in a couple states..but he was still recognized as being ineligble to hold the office of President.
Well sorry to disappoint you nick, but I believe Obama was born in Hawaii.
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My apologies to the blog for part way repeating myself. My actual comment is the longer one. If the shorter one could somehow be deleted because it’s partly repeating the second one, would appreciate it.
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You mean other then the implication you were creating by bringing up Calero?
Calero may have been on the ballot in a couple states..but he was still recognized as being ineligble to hold the office of President.
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You mean other then the implication you were creating by bringing up Calero?
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Nick Kelsier Says:
You, Loucan, and you Carmen can claim that Obama was born in Kenya all you want but until/unless you have actual proof that he was your claim is as foolish as those who claim that the 9-11 attacks was orchestrated by the “Zionists” and that every Jew who worked in the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon got a phone call telling them not to go into work that day.
You have no evidence, you have no proof. All you have is well…your opinions. And your opinions don’t mean a damn thing.
I have a question for you Nick. Where in my two posts did I say, or do you interpret that I believe Obama was born anywhere?
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Thank you for the correction, Ed.
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Actually, Nick, McCain was not born on the base. The soil argument doesn’t work. So, if McCain is eligible born in Panama, so is Obama, even were he born in Kenya (which he was not).
No, there is no requirement for both parents to have been citizens, either.
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Ok lets settle this. Can the Governor of California become US President? No. Because he wasn’t born in this country.
Can Bobby Jindal become US President? Yeah..he was born in Louisana. Hence he is a Natural/Native born Citizen.
Meaning to be a NBC of this country you have to be born in this country, in one of the embassies of this country or on one of the military bases of this country. In other words you have to be born on United States soil.
So John McCain was eligble to be President of this country. He was born on a US military base in Panama. And Barack Obama is eligble to be President of this country. He was born in the state of Hawaii.
You, Loucan, and you Carmen can claim that Obama was born in Kenya all you want but until/unless you have actual proof that he was your claim is as foolish as those who claim that the 9-11 attacks was orchestrated by the “Zionists” and that every Jew who worked in the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon got a phone call telling them not to go into work that day.
You have no evidence, you have no proof. All you have is well…your opinions. And your opinions don’t mean a damn thing.
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Loucon,
*sigh* I’m not sure if calling you a questioner is a big of enough distinction in my mind. Please forgive me, but I fear we will end up speaking different languages. I will grant that you are discussing this rather than alleging a giant conspiracy, so perhaps it is.
I do not think that anyone needs an American parent (or parents) to be qualified as a natural born citizen. To me citizenship at birth = natural born citizen. As far as I know, US law only makes the distinction between citizens who were born as Americans and people who become US citizens by naturalization. If there is a third class of citizens, those who were born citizens but not natural born under the auspices of the constitution, I have seen no distinction made either in US law nor in documentation provided by state governments at birth establishing citizenship.
Now perhaps I am wrong. I am after all no constitutional scholar, nor am I a lawyer. Do I find the NBC clause ambiguous? Well yes, but I also find the 14 years residency ambiguous as well. Is it consecutive? If that’s the case Hoover would have been ineligible. Would it be nice to have everything defined? Would it be nice for a simple open standard for eligibility and verification of? I’ll answer both with a definitive yes. Am I holding my breath for it to happen? Absolutely not.
I’ll ask you something: If there is a requirement for both parents to be citizens for NBC, what about a mother who conceives due to a sperm donor? What if the biological father, not involved in the child’s life at all, unknown to the mother and child, was not actually a US citizen at time of conception? Should we make that distinction? Is that person less a natural born citizen than a person who has parents who was naturalized but after birth went back to the parents homeland and grew up there? It just seems like a weird and arbitrary distinction to me.
Thanks for the Boston Law review article (and thanks Ed for the link). I’ll try and read it as soon as possible.
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The Boston Law Review article can be viewed here:
http://www.scribd.com/people/documents/5394316?from_badge_documents_button=1&page=3
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Der Kaiser Says:
Loucon, I’ll grant that you seem to be more principled about this than a lot of birthers, however you seem to be under the impression that SCOTUS has to rule on something or it isn’t constitutional. … … … … … … In fact, were the electors to exercise their constitutional positions fully and become faithless en mass, likely that would cause a constitutional crisis and make many people question the legitimacy of the outcome.
That is correct. The SCOTUS does not have to rule on the constitutionality of an issue, and they actually can’t until cause is shown that a ruling is needed. It would take some catalyst for SCOTUS to do its stuff.
I find it interesting that you think Jindal qualifies purely on jus soli or lex soli. I believe that the definition would have to include jus sanguinis. One parent or both parents is a little cloudy, at least to me.
There is a very interesting article in the Boston Law Review (2005), entitled:
‘NATURAL BORN’ IN THE USA: THE
STRIKING UNFAIRNESS AND DANGEROUS
AMBIGUITY OF THE CONSTITUTION’S PRESIDENTIAL
QUALIFICATIONS CLAUSE AND
WHY WE NEED TO FIX IT
Basically it argues in favor of changing the NBC clause. While I’m not in total agreement with all the conclusions it makes, it does offer strong arguments as to why this issue needs to be addressed.
My time is short this morning so I’ll have to end this for now, but I will check back later as I have some more thoughts on this issue.
Loucon
PS – don’t lump all “questioners” together with all “birthers” – were not the same
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And as for the claim about Roger Calero, this is from wikipedia:
In 2004, Róger Calero was the SWP candidate for President of the United States and received 3,689 votes,[5] with Arrin Hawkins running for Vice President. Because he is not a natural born citizen of the United States, Calero is ineligible to become U.S. president under the United States Constitution, and so James Harris, the Socialist Workers’ Party presidential candidate from 2000, stood in on the ticket in nine states where Calero could not be listed, receiving 7,102 additional votes.[6]
In 2006, Róger Calero appeared on the ballot in New York as the Socialist Workers Party candidate for US Senate. He received 5,127 votes [7].
Róger Calero again ran for President of the United States representing the SWP in the 2008 presidential election, together with Alyson Kennedy for vice-president. Again, James Harris stood in for Calero in several states. In the 2008 presidential election, Calero was on the ballot in five states, where he received 7,209 votes. Coupled with the 2,424 votes received in the five states where Harris was on the ballot.
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Carmen, if he was born in Kenya he would be ineligble to be President. Because then he wouldn’t be a native born citizen of the United States. however, since he was born in Hawaii… a state in the United States he is indeed a native born citizen.
And again…since it’s your claim that he isn’t one it’s up to you to prove your claim. Since he obviously satisified the federal authorities as to the nature of his citizenship he doesn’t have to prove a damn thing.
You say your disagreements with Obama are related to his views. that’s exactly right. In other words, if Obama held the same views you held you would not be questioning his citizenship. Or to put this bluntly…if Obama was a conservative Republican like you you would not be questioning his citizenship at all. It isn’t that you think he isn’t a citizen that has you questioning his citizenship…what has you questoning his citizenship is that you are trying to nullify his election to the Presidency because you are ticked off that the American people dared to elect someone you don’t like.
And Obama has not proposed taking over private property, has not proposed nationalizing all means of production. He has done nothing that is actually socialist. You just want to claim it is because you don’t like him. And in actuality the fact that you were born in the Soviet Union in this case so completely skews your perception that anything, in your mind, that at all implies socialism automatically becomes socialism whether it actually is or not. You’re in effect a traumatized victim.
And as for your claim that the rich give to charity..yeah they do. And so does the middle class and the poor. The problem is that it isn’t enough. So then the government has to step in at times. Or have you rather missed the news items saying that even the charities are struggling in this economic morass?
And yeah there is a limit to how much you can raise taxes. But over the 8 years of the Bush presidency they got the vast majority of the tax cuts. Over the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush presidency they got the vast majority of the tax cuts. The middle class now pays a higher percentage of the taxes then the rich. And that’s ignoring the fact that the rich have access to tax shelters like the Cayman islands. It also ignores the fact that corportations in this country, through tax shelters, get away with not paying over 100 million dollars in taxes. That is taxes that you and I and the rest of the middle class have to make up, Carmen, because what your precious Republicans have done is shift the tax burden from the rich..to the middle class. And it’s also ignoring the fact that over the last 30 years the rich..the top 5% of the country have gotten an increasingly larger share of the wealth produced by this country. And yet there you sit..pretending that’s not a problem. The ones redisturbiting wealth in this country are you and the Republicans. You’re shifting the wealth increasingly into the hands of the rich and the very rich to the detriment of the middle class and the poor.
And if you think we are in any way shape or form in danger of having a “Russian Revolution” then you are out of your bloody mind.
But let me give you a clue here. If that ever happens it wont be because of people like Obama and the Democrats. It will be because of people like you and the rest of the Republicans who will have so completely fucked up this country through your laiizes faire economic policies that you will have caused the vast majority of the US population to go for your throats. If what you fear happens, Carmen, it will be your fault and the fault of the Republicans for selling your souls to the rich while screwing the middle class so completely.
It isn’t us that hasn’t learned the lessons of 1917. It is you and the Republicans that are repeating the mistakes made there.
Oh and like I said..those things I listed are from the Catholic social teachings. I’m going to assume you’re not asinine enough to claim that the Catholic church is marxist.
The link to the Catholic Social teachings is: http://www.osjspm.org/major_themes.aspx
That will take you to the website for the Office of Social Justice for the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Have fun choking, Carmen.
And then I would suggest that you bother to remember the Preamble to the US Constitution. It reads:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America
Do pay attention to that “promote the general welfare” line next time before you run your mouth.
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Carmen, do you have any copies of your school documents from the CCCP to prove your claims? You should post your birth certificate, too, to give us an example of what one should provide to prove their place of birth and where they grew up. You should also provide a copy of a newspaper from the CCCP to back up your claims, analogous to the way that Obama’s Hawaiian birth was announced in the Honolulu newspaper.
I suppose you believe that writers for the Honolulu newspaper at the time of Obama’s birth were early co-conspirators trying to get him a gig in the White House.
I realize that as a creationist, you already believe in talking snakes and magical fruit, so my expectations of you are pretty low, but please provide some credible evidence for your claims regarding your background of the sort you demand from Obama.
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Being born on a US military base makes McCain a natural born US citizen so he is indeed eligble.
Obama was born in Hawaii, not Kenya, like you want to claim. And you have offered no evidence so your claim has no merit.
And as for you, Loucan, gee I know what Obama would have had to do because over the last 15 years I’ve worked on several campaigns, that my degrees are in political science and that I, unlike you, am an expert.
You, Carmen, say your objection is based on his views. Thank you for proving what I said. That if Obama was a Republican you would not be engaging in this stupid “He’s not a native born citizen” bullshit.
Oh, Carmen, what I listed was the Catholic Social Teachings. So tell me, Carmen, is the Catholic church..an institution that fought the Soviet Union and Communism..is it Marxist?
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This has always troubled me as well.
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Then I guess I’m still missing it because this only seems to support everything I said. Birthers don’t like his policies and would not have voted for him even if they had never questioned his citizenship/eligibility.
I have never encountered a birther who supports President Obama’s policies and actually wants him to be president, but simply does not think he’s eligible. It just seems a rather odd coincidence.
And I never said or even implied that all birthers are Republicans.
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Oh dear God in Heaven… You actually think that the level of scrutiny applied to Obama is the same as the amount that would be given to an obscure 3rd party candidate with no chances of winning?
Do you really think that all Obama had to do was sign a sheet of paper for the DNC and produce his driver’s licence? As a matter of simple common sense, the DNC, to say nothing of Obama’s own campaign, would be seriously interested in investigating Obama in order to prevent some sort of October surprise. The Dems wanted the White House this year and a candidate who even had a chance at getting disqualified is not someone one a major party would want to run. Even if there was a court battle that ended in Obama’s favour, those are a) costly b) time consuming, c) damaging and distracting both in the short term and long term.
Also, Obama campaigned against Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Both of whom had large numbers of operatives engaging in something called opposition research. Obama was lambasted by the Clinton campaign as “elitist” and in the general election was accused by Sarah Palin as “palling around with terrorists.” They weren’t shy about leveling explosive charges without much evidence to back them up. And they had paid staff researching Obama endlessly, digging for quotes and from events in his past that could be used to defeat him. Don’t you think that if the birther arguments held some small kernel of truth constitutionally, or even could appear to at a stretch do so, ambitious people like Clinton or McCain would have used them?
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Loucon, I’ll grant that you seem to be more principled about this than a lot of birthers, however you seem to be under the impression that SCOTUS has to rule on something or it isn’t constitutional. In fact they have rejected several cases (and many lower courts have also rejected more cases). They don’t have to actively declare the President a NBC… In fact, in US law he is as I believe Jindal is as well. There is precedent in favour of Obama, both in those who have held executive office (Arthur, Curtis) and in Supreme Court Cases (e.g. Wong Kim Ark).
If birther theories on NBC had the slightest bit of constitutional credence that their authors claim, you’d think there would exist a few sympathetic judges, or professors of constitutional law who would be interested in getting the case heard.
Finally, just because there is no specific Supreme Court ruling on the matter, doesn’t invalidate the process. For instance, while the Presidency is actually elected by the Electoral College, it is traditional that the popular votes of the state determine the victor. Obama, after all (like Bush before him) became President-elect on election night. To my knowledge, such a process while not mandated by the constitution has never been scrutinized by SCOTUS. In fact, were the electors to exercise their constitutional positions fully and become faithless en mass, likely that would cause a constitutional crisis and make many people question the legitimacy of the outcome.
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Nick Kelsier Says:
April 23, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Carmen, he would have had to prove that he is a natural born US citizen when he filed to run for President.
Nope. All you have to do is sign an affidavit claiming such, and show ID. Take for example Róger Calero, he was on the ballot in five states this past election. He was born in Nicaragua in 1969 and has held a green card since 1990, yet some how his name appeared on the ballots of five states. Don’t look like he had to prove anything, why would you think Obama did?
loucon
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Lottie Says:
April 23, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I’ve never come across a single birther who said, “You know, I think Barack Obama is a decent man of integrity. I support his policies and think he would be a wonderful president. I think he’s just what the U.S. needs and I would have voted for him, but I couldn’t in good conscience, because I honestly don’t believe he’s eligible.”
Unfortunately, I can’t give that kind of praise to Obama, but I don’t think he’s an indecent man, and I do believe that he believes strongly in what he is doing. That gives him quite a few points in my book. I do however have that kind of praise for our current governor of Louisiana. He’s being touted as the next great hope for the republican candidacy in 2012, and guess what, by my definition of “Natural born” as used in constitutional terms, Jindal does not qualify. I would like to see the SCOTUS address the issue so that Jindal can constitutionally run as president, but if they don’t, I guess I’ll have to vote for one that is, or not vote at all.
loucon
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There may be a tiny handful of former Democrats who are now “birthers,” but their grasp on reality was probably strained before as well. I was surprised and somewhat disgusted to find so many of the “PUMA” blogs were in fact registered by McCain apparatchiks. There are a number of people who claim to have been Hillary Clinton supporters, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why they would have been. They reveal themselves as die-hard Bush-whackoes in their criticism of Obama and policies now.
Of the several thousands of Obama supporters I’ve met, not one has turned against him on any issue. I cannot find any birther now who has a record of Obama support, especially among bloggers. Their blogging records and archives reveal no previous support for Obama.
That’s a silly reason to vote for anyone for president. The issues are far greater than where one is born, nor is there any serious link between the soil upon which one is born and positions on issues. I find that claim spurious and specious.
And, such a vote would be cast against the greater hopes of patriots like George Washington (who was not a natural born citizen), Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln, who thought issues to be of the utmost importance.
That’s a claim of patent bovine excrement. Obama is the first candidate ever to have posted his birth certificate. That you refuse to honor the laws of the U.S. and respect that document as genuine is not evidence of Obama’s hiding anything, but is instead evidence of your hiding something.
The document has been vetted by reporters and due diligence specialists, who all pronounce it genuine. You do the nation a disservice, and our laws great dishonor, to do otherwise.
But that would have been a lie. Admitting to false claims does not make one more honorable, but less so. Claiming falsely to have been born in Kenya would have been an honor disqualification.
McCain was telling the truth about Obama’s birth, too, when McCain pronounced Obama perfectly eligible. Why can’t you be as consistently honorable as John McCain?
That’s right: Democrats never stooped to such inanity.
And yet you hide behind this bogus issue, behind the hoax claims. If you have difference on issues, don’t fog up the debate platform with irrelevancies of fantasy.
And you’ve probably seen the sort of character assassination now attempted against Obama. I’m shocked you don’t recognize it and call it for what it is.
If it was Marxist, it was by coincidence. Those are also principals of patriotic Americans, key tenets of our government, points of Christian charity and elements of the Boy Scout Law.
Doing good things does not make one a dangerous Marxist. And if those things are what you’re worried about, you’ll find nowhere on Earth to be free from the desire for good health care, good education, and opportunities to work for a good living.
Nothing in any Obama policy urges anything close to that. So what is it that concerns you?
Our welfare system was shrinking under the policies Obama urges us to return to. Welfare is a diminishing part of government. But, under a compassionate free market system, it is necessary to prevent workhouses.
Much charity in the U.S. comes from the poor. In our annual collections of food for our local food pantries, we get much more from low- and middle-income neighborhoods, per household, than we do from the country club estates. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet give a lot, but they are exceptional. In no way do they carry the whole burden.
In the U.S. today, 33% would be the highest rate income could be taxed at. Effective taxes are much lower — near 20% — due to exclusions and deductions. Our tax rate is among the lowest in the industrialized world; but then, our expenses for business are among the highest because of what we do not buy with taxes. Current economic strife aside, our failure to have a national health care system that covers all residents has made our automakers noncompetitive against the Japanese, French, English and Germans.
Being competitive in industry isn’t Marxist. Getting the policies to become competitive isn’t Marxist, either.
For the past 20 years we’ve been redistributing wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich. A few years reversing that trend isn’t Marxist — it’s moral, patriotic, and genuinely capitalist. It’s smart, too.
Imbalances are dangerous either way. Restoring balance is not, per se, Marxist.
Whining about others not granting credence to the hoaxes about Obama’s birth certificate won’t stave off Marxism, either. It could bring it closer, especially if it damages Obama’s work to save American free enterprise.
This guy isn’t just wondering about Obama’s birth certificate, by the way, Carmen: https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/complaint-against-the-blogger/
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