Happer said he is dismayed by the politicization of the issue and believes the community of climate change scientists has become a veritable “religious cult,” noting that nobody understands or questions any of the science.
He noted in an interview that in the past decade, despite what he called “alarmist” claims, there has not only not been warming, there has in fact been global cooling. He added that climate change scientists are unable to use models to either predict the future or accurately model past events.
Do rightwingers even know how to operate an irony meter?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Hallucinations would be bad enough, but what do you have to smoke to see hallucinations other people were supposed to have had, but didn’t?
Looking at the docket of the Supreme Court, I don’t see that any of the anti-Obama suits got an order for certiorari. Will the dismissal of the wingnut lawsuits make the wingnuts go away?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Sometimes I don’t get e-mail from crazies. Sometimes I get e-mail from people who make perfect sense.
Like this one I got today, from Hillary Clinton’s mom:
Dear Ed,
I’ve been so proud watching my daughter over the past few days as she begins a new step in a life so full of accomplishment. And I know she’ll continue to do great things for our country.
Now I have to ask you — for the very last time — to give her your help. This is our last chance to help Hillary pay down the debt from her history-making campaign.
I know how much it would mean to her to have your help this one last time. Please take this opportunity to show Hillary your support by making a contribution today.
Thank you for everything you’ve done for Hillary — I know you make a difference for her every day.
Sincerely,
Dorothy Rodham
Hey, PUMAs! Are you paying attention?
Hillary Clinton’s campaign still has a debt of several million dollars. The PUMA blogs complain that President-elect Obama isn’t doing anything to help her retire the debt. Of course, there is a law that prohibits a president-elect from doing much of anything — he can’t transfer more than $2,500 from his campaign account, he can’t attend fund-raisers or sign letters.
So it’s up to Hillary Clinton to make her own campaign funds appeals. And sometime early next week, the law will close off her opportunities — a Secretary of State can’t do much to raise funds.
Fans of Hillary Clinton can contribute small stuff — a million contributions of $5.00 will help a lot, for example.
Are PUMAs really fans of Hillary Clinton as they claim? Now is the time for them to step up to the plate and knock one out of the park, if they are.
It’s time for all other fans of Hillary Clinton to step up, too.
Don’t you think she’ll make a great Secretary of State?
Here’s a map that should be more viewed in America, but a map which has been much overlooked in the post-election euphoria, or post-election gloom. It’s the map of electoral college results, still showing Republicans in a Soviet/Maoist red, and Democrats in blue:
Electoral College results from the 2008 presidential election - American Presidency Project
Note especially the blue dot in Nebraska, around Omaha. Nebraska splits its electoral college votes, giving each congressional district’s vote to the elector for the candidate who actually won in that district. Obama won Omaha’s district; Nebraska is officially a red and blue state. Maine also allows a split in electors, but this year did not see a split among the electorate.
America is not so red as some claim, even in the electoral college. More states are surrounded by blue states than surrounded by red states.
Perhaps it’s time to find other ways to color these maps, so that we cannot so easily speak of a red state/blue state split that does not reflect politics, economics, or much of anything else in America.
Dallas students are out on inauguration day. We can hope our government and history students will glue themselves to the television to watch the ceremony, but we know better than to expect it.
Will you discuss the inauguration in your classes, whatever the subject? Here are some sources you could use:
New lesson plans and other materials from the Bill of Rights Institute, on presidential inaugurations. Even better if you’re a cheapskate like me, you can download the inauguration lessons for free, but only on January 13 and 14, 2009.
Free-for a limited time only!
Bring the historic Presidential Inauguration of 2009 into your classroom! “Presidential Inauguration: History, Tradition, and the Constitution” helps your students learn more about Inauguration Day from constitutional, historical, and current perspectives.
Those of you who own Being an American: Exploring the Ideals that Unite Us, Second Edition can use your unique passwords to access the lesson at any time. If you do not own the curriculum, you can download the lesson for free for two days only: January 13-14, 2009. Download your lesson at www.BillofRightsInstitute.org/today!
To buy Being an American, Second Edition, which gives you a full week of lessons and access to all past and future Web-based materials, click here.
Best deal, especially for U.S. history, spend the $20 and buy the full set of plans.
I’ve managed to get myself banned at that last website. I asked the author to make a case, to provide the evidence and arguments against Obama’s eligibility. Such an appearance of gravity and Newtonian physics scares the bejeebers out of these groups.
One of the most intrigueing questions now: What will the Bergites and Dononfrions do after inauguration?Are there enough of them that Pfizer is working on a treatment, or cure?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Then in 1852 his own party refused to nominate him for a full term, making him the last Whig to be president. And to add insult to ignominy, H. L. Mencken falsely accused him of being known only for adding a bathtub to the White House, something he didn’t do.
As Antony said of Caesar, the good was interred with his bones — but Millard Fillmore doesn’t even get credit for whatever evil he might have done: Fillmore is remembered most for being the butt of a hoax gone awry, committed years after his death. Or worse, he’s misremembered for what the hoax alleged he did.
The Buffalo News, in the town Fillmore loved and worked to make great, said this morning:
Today is Millard Fillmore’s 209th birthday. Every year we vow to join those hardy folks from the University at Buffalo for their birthday observance at the monument to the 13th President on his grave in Section F in Forest Lawn. And every year the weather convinces us to stay inside. If you want to brave it, it starts at 10 a.m. There’s a reception in the chapel after the ceremony.
I’m in Dallas. You won’t see me there.
All the living presidents meet today in the White House. Will they toast Fillmore?
Millard Fillmore was a man of great civic spirit, a man who answered the call to serve even when most others couldn’t hear it at all. He was a successful lawyer, despite having had only six months of formal education (a tribute to non-high school graduates and lifelong learning). Unable to save the Union, he established the University of Buffalo and the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. And, it is said of him, that Queen Victoria said he was the most handsome man she had ever met.
A guy like that deserves a toast, don’t you think?
Because we know Obama has a U.S. passport, we can be quite sure his draft status was verified before it was issued — which puts to bed any issue about his registering for the draft (which he wouldn’t have been required to do in any case until 1980 — draft registration had been suspended in 1973 until the Afghanistan/Soviet crisis).
Obama’s a lawyer; the National Conference of Bar Examiners, or the Illinois Bar, would have checked on any problems that surfaced when verifying his fitness to practice law.
Obama was a U.S. senator; as a matter of course, the FBI does a background check on every U.S. senator to verify they may view top secret material. Security clearances are absolutely necessary for members of the Intelligence Oversight Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Armed Services Committee. Obama was a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, chairing the subcommittee that deals with U.S. relations with NATO — a post that requires top secret clearances.
Obama has been getting the full national security briefing every day that the president gets; CIA and Homeland Security would have to verify his top secret clearances, and then some. There is absolutely no indication that this top, top check was not carried out.
Perhaps most important, Obama posted an image of his birth certificate on-line in June; experts who checked the actual document verify it is real, and therefore authoritative.
Each of these six circumstances creates a rebuttable presumption that Obama is a citizen, and a natural born citizen under the somewhat ambiguous requirements of Article II of the Constitution. In order to make a case that Obama is ineligible, contestants would need to make a strong showing, with clear evidence, to rebut the presumptions created by by these official actions.
Professional poker player Leo Donofrio has made no such evidentiary showing, anywhere, at any time. Nor has any other Obama critic presented any evidence to overcome any of these six presumptions.
Jim Lehrer in no way defended the actions of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. If Newsbusters can’t tell what’s going on in a basic television interview, they have no business claiming to be associated with news in any fashion.
Five weeks away from the inauguration of Barack Obama, I wonder what Oring’s postcards could tell us? Where is she now?
Check out her website, I Wish to Say. Maybe your classroom could support a similar project from your students. What do these cards tell us about Americans? What do they tell us about our electoral process? What do they tell us about our hopes and fears? DBQ, anyone?
Two of several hundred postcards from Americans, collected by Sheryl Oring (and typed by her) to send to "the next president" -- who we now know will be Barack Obama.
Michael Kountoris, Eleftheros Typos, 1st place in the Lurie/UN Cartoon Awards, 2008
Of the 13 cartoons, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and honorable mentions, at least six touch on environmental topics. Is this a representation of a the cartoons published in the past year?
All the cartoons honored deserve your viewing — go see them here.
The award is offered annually by the UN Correspondents Association in honor of Ranan Lurie, who probably still is the most widely syndicated cartoonist in history. A sample of Lurie’s work, below the fold.
In a conference today [December 5, 2008] the Supreme Court will reconsider together whether to take on a suit challenging the eligibility of Barack Obama to be president of the United States under a sometimes-arcane section of Article II of the Constitution.
Is Barack Obama a “natural born” citizen of the U.S.?
In the building where “Equal Justice Under Law” is engraved high over the front door, poker-player Leo Donofrio’s challenge will be examined to see whether at least four of the nine justices of the Court think he has enough of a case to actually merit a hearing. Justice David Souter rejected Donofrio’s case earlier, so this is a hail-Mary play on the part of Obama’s opponents.
Equal Justice Under Law, the West Pediment of the U.S. Supreme court. AAPF image
The Court takes seriously the principle engraved over the door, however. This is the same Court that ruled earlier this year an accused terrorist and all-around bad guy held at Guantanamo Bay has the right to a writ of habeas corpus over the objections of the Most Power Man in the World, U.S. President George W. Bush. The humble, gritty, or even unsavory history of litigants does not limit their rights under the law.
Leo Donofrio in his usual office. Leo Donofrio image
So the question is, what sort of case does Donofrio have against Obama’s eligibility?
Would Justice Clarence Thomas have agreed to bring this case to the conference if it doesn’t have a chance to succeed?
I’ve not lunched with Thomas in more than two decades, so I can’t speak with any inside knowledge. Historically, the Court, and indeed all the federal courts, have agreed to examine cases like this often simply to provide an authoritative close to the issue. In this case, the outright hysteria of the anti-Obama partisans suggests the issue should be put to bed if possible.
Under usual Court procedures, we won’t learn the results of the conference until Monday. I would not be surprised if the results are announced today, just to promote the settling of the issue.
Does Donofrio have a case?
I don’t see a case. It’s clear that Obama is a U.S. citizen now. Donofrio’s argument is rather strained, and sexist. He claims that Obama’s father having been a British subject in 1961 (Kenya was not yet independent), Obama had dual citizenship at birth — and, further, Donofrio alleges, this dual citizenship trumps both Obama’s birth on U.S. soil (which should be dispositive) AND Obama’s mother’s U.S. citizenship, conferring a special status that doesn’t meet the intentions of the framers of the Constitution.
Donofrio’s claim is odd in that it would grant a lesser-status to children of legal immigrants than is allowed by law to children of illegal immigrants, or temporary visitors. It also is bizarre, to me, in the way it dismisses Obama’s mother’s existence as a factor in Obama’s citizenship status — and while equal rights for women were not wholly obtained in 1961, no one has successfully argued that the citizenship of the father trumps that of the mother in citizenship cases.
Donofrio is arguing that Obama’s dual citizenship at birth disqualifies him from holding the presidency, technically, in a very narrow reading — though Obama would have absolutely every other right of a natural born citizen.
A couple of observations:
First, this is not an easy issue to litigate. Standing is the easiest way for a federal court to avoid a decision — what harm can a citizen claim from letting Obama be president? It’s difficult to find an injury even were Donofrio’s claims valid. No blood, no foul. No injury, no standing to sue. It is upon this basis that most of the cases against Obama’s eligibility have been tossed out, as Donofrio’s has been tossed, twice already.
Second, it is unclear what entity enforces the eligibility clause of the Constitution, or indeed, whether any entity can. For most of the summer Obama’s critics were pressuring the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to do something, even though the FEC lacks a quorum of members to do anything. More to the point, there is nothing in any law that confers on the FEC the function of checking the citizenship status of any candidate. Sometime in October they finally figured out that state secretaries of state might have a role, since they set up the ballots in each state.
I admit I thought that, until I reflected on the issue of the electoral college. In U.S. presidential elections, voters do not vote directly for president and vice president. Instead, we vote to elect people who will be the electors who decide — electors of the electoral college. The history of this institution can be found elsewhere. For the sake of these suits, however, it means that the secretaries of state have no role at all in the eligibility of the candidates. They rule on the eligibility of the electors, which is an entirely different kettle of fish. Some states even list the electors on the ballot.
But in any case, it means Donofrio is suing the wrong entity, even if we can’t tell him what the correct entity is.
Third and most important, Donofrio is asking for U.S. citizenship law to be overturned in a most inconvenient time and place. Dual citizenship is a bar to very little in American life. There is an assumption that people who hold that status are fully American citizens, absent a showing of contrary facts. There are no contrary facts in evidence from Donofrio, nor from anyone else, despite promises of the revelation of conspiracies.
In short, Donofrio is arguing that there is, somewhere, somehow, some information that Barack Obama is not the shining patriot his life story reveals. Donofrio doesn’t know what that information is, or where it might be found, but he thinks maybe the State of Hawaii is complicit in a conspiracy to hide this information, which is hidden on the hand-written records of Obama’s birth in 1961. You might think Donofrio has watched “National Treasure” a few too many times, and whether it’s that movie or some other source, you’d be right — paranoid suspicions of conspiracy are not the stuff good court cases are made of.
The dozen or more cases against Obama’s eligibility all suffer from this astounding, dramatic lack of evidence. Is there an affidavit from someone who alleges that Obama’s citizenship should be called into question? If so, they’ve not been presented to any court. (Obama tormentor Corsi claims to have interviewed Obama’s Kenyan grandmother, and he alleges she said through an interpreter that Obama was born in Kenya; oddly, he didn’t bother to get an affidavit from the woman, nor from anyone else — and others who listen to the tape think she thought Corsi was asking about the birth of her son, not grandson. This is not solid evidence.)
This is not an issue solely for the hysterical. Lawyers and scholars have looked at the issue through the years, and intensely this year, and arrived at the conclusion that Obama is perfectly eligible for the presidency.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
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