Not an apology. Not an update on information he didn’t have all those weeks ago (8% of Americans do NOT pay income tax, not 47%). Not a clarification.
“Ooooh, please, look at all the flags!”
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23 Comments | 
Economics, History, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party | Tagged: 2012 Campaign, 47%, 53%, Economics, History, Mitt Romney, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Is there any rational person in the world who really views the world this way?
I had thought this a minor deal, until I saw the denials on the news a few minute ago. You might explain it. But deny it?
Transcript of his remarks on September 17, from AmericanBridge:
Mitt Romney at a secret donor meeting:
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.
“[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
16 Comments | Economics, History, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party | Tagged: 2012 Campaign, Class Warfare, Economics, History, Mitt Romney, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republicans | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
My GOP friends tried to say that Todd Akin’s odd views on pregnancy and rape are a brand of stupid unique to him. ‘Don’t think all Republicans are that ignorant,’ they said.
Hey, I worked with Republicans and in the Republican Party for years. I know a lot of bright, intelligent Republicans.
Most of them couldn’t get through the door of the party these days, if they didn’t already have elected or appointed posts. Many Republidans come well-acquainted with libraries, books, critical thinking and an appreciation of art and literature, and at least a rudimentary understanding of science — but alas, they and their views are being smothered by the chuckleheads in the party.
When the Akin flap broke, we were all saddened to learn that he had carried some of those odd views for several years, and that Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and the entire Texas Republican delegation in the House of Representatives joined with Akin last February to try to change the legal definition of rape to match Akin’s views. How embarrassing, not just to be caught, but to have done that stuff in the first place.
“Aberration,” the Republicans said.
Pennsylvania GOP candidate for U.S. Senate Tom Smith told reporters pregnancy from rape is about the same as pregnancy from an out-of-wedlock affair. Photo from Tom Smith campaign
Don’t look now, but that trickle from the dam holding back the stupid swelled to a stream, and it’s threatening to erode the dam and unleash all the stupid behind it.
I refer you to the odd and disgusting case of Pennsylvania Republican Tom Smith, the GOP hope to defeat Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, reported in the New York Daily News:
Pennsylvania Senate hopeful Tom Smith sparked controversy Monday after he compared a pregnancy resulting from rape to “having a baby out-of-wedlock” – days after Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) shocked many by claiming that “legitimate rape” doesn’t lead to pregnancy.
Smith tried to distance himself from Akin’s comments at the Pennsylvania Press Club in Harrisburg, saying that the congressman “should have never said anything like that,” the Harrisburg Patriot-News reported.
But when a reporter asked him what he would do if one of his daughters or granddaughters became pregnant as a result of rape, he said that he had “lived something similar to that with [his] own family,” referring to his daughter’s “out-of-wedlock” pregnancy from consensual sex.
“She chose life, and I commend her for that,” Smith said. “She knew my views but fortunately for me … she chose the way I thought. Now don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t rape.”
When pressed by another reporter, the 66-year-old reiterated the comparison of his daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy to becoming pregnant from rape.
“Put yourself in a father’s position. Yes, it is similar,” he said.
Smith, who is running against incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) in November, later clarified his statements at the same event.
“No … I said I went through a situation [with a daughter]. It’s very, very difficult,” Smith said. “But do I condone rape? Absolutely not. But do I propose life, yes I do. I’m pro-life, period.”
Steve Forbes endorses Tom Smith? The scary question is whether Forbes bothered to learn Smith’s views, or did he perhaps endorse Smith knowing about Smith’s odd views, and hoping Smith would push them in Washngton? Smith campaign image.
One might wonder if the real reason the GOP cut their convention short was to prevent more leaks of the truth about their candidates views and odd positions on issues. Cutbacks in news departments and the shrinking news holes in most newspapers could be partly to blame for these late-breaking stories of stupid. Generally news stories expose gross ignorance and patent stupidity in primary campaigns, and voters of the parties vote away candidates who hold extreme, bizarre, dangerous or silly views. News organizations don’t have the staff to expose these things early, and they get exposed late only on a catch-as-catch-can basis.
But there is a very real danger that some people with money are pushing these candidates because of their odd views. In Texas, Tea Party courtesan Ted Cruz defeated a well-known candidate for the U.S. Senate nomination, and part of his appeal may be his odd views that the United Nations is trying to seize U.S. golf courses. Democrat Paul Sadler faces an uphill battle even in Texas where Cruz’s friends in oil pipelines are seizing private farm and ranch land. Cruz claims to fight against an imaginary problem, but he lets the real problems roll right over Texans.
A wise voter without a lot of time to study in depth the views of candidates might be compelled to vote Democratic straight tickets as the safest thing to do, even with a few odd views among Democrats.
How many more? How many other odd, divorced-from-reality views have residence in the penthouses of the Republican mansion? Waiting for one more shoe to drop would be bad enough — ignorance in the GOP seems to be a centipede with dozens of shoes.
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24 Comments | 2010 Elections, 2012 Campaigns, Campaigns, Elections, Ethics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party | Tagged: 2012 Campaign, Bob Casey, Ethics, Paul Ryan, Paul Sadler for Texas, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party, Ted Cruz, Todd Akin, Tom Smith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
As good ideas go, it’s difficult to top the idea of public broadcasting, and particularly Lyndon Johnson‘s creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the subsequent formation of NPR and PBS, and the proliferation of public broadcasting stations across the U.S.
For a small pittance of money from public coffers, the nation gets the massive advantage of working news networks dedicated to informing the public accurately, and great cultural preservation, including education of the very young.
Florida’s U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio wants to kill the Big Bird that lays the golden eggs for our kids. Big Bird doesn’t make rude comments in response.
For-profit broadcasting has been absolutely unable to equal quality programs on television like “Sesame Street,” or “Masterpiece Theatre,” or “American Masters,” or “American Experience. For-profit radio has nothing to equal “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” “Prairie Home Companion,” or even “Car Talk.”
You know some politician is playing to the yahoos and anti-civilization types when he takes a swipe at schools, libraries, or public broadcasting.
So, we know Marco Rubio‘s questioning of funding for CPB is a swing for the foul territory, an appeal for ignorance, to ignorance and ignorants. ABC News, a rival of both NPR and PBS, reported the story with all its ironic drippings:
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., expressed worry this morning about broadcasting outlets that use taxpayer money to stay on the air.
But Rubio made his comments on NPR, a broadcasting outlet that uses taxpayer money to stay on the air.
“I do have concerns about spending money on public broadcasting,” Rubio told Diane Rehm during an hourlong Q&A on NPR.
NPR has been a source of criticism from congressional Republicans who view it as a liberal refuge that espouses its views courtesy of public funding. Although only 2 percent of NPR’s funding comes from government grants, the loss of federal funding would undermine the ability of NPR stations to pay for NPR programming, NPR says.
Rubio argued that private donations should support such an enterprise as NPR, and that plenty of outlets are available to house that ideology and format. He admitted, though, that he enjoys Rehm’s show and that NPR’s funding is low on the list of costs that should be cut.
A caller pointed out the irony of Rubio’s position, saying, “He’s spending an entire hour on the show today.”
Rubio countered that a half-century ago, a station like NPR might have been necessary, but “today there is no shortage of options” for news and opinion.
“I have 300 stations on my satellite radio,” Rubio boasted.
300 stations on his satellite — which most Americans cannot afford — and not a single station equal to the worst of NPR’s network.
Shame on Marco Rubio. Tighten your seatbelts, America, it’s going to be a bumpy election, with lots of appeals to ignorance and praise for doing less than the best.
Do you know where the word “yahoo” comes from? Rubio is one of the epitomes.
Now, here’s the trouble: Is he making this appeal in hopes of winning votes, in hopes of getting Mitt Romney’s attention for the vice president’s slot on the ticket? Or is he really just that anti-quality, anti-American? Bet he doesn’t like baseball or apple pie, either — we won’t even mention Mom.
6 Comments | Education, Journalism, News, Politics, Public Broadcasting, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Diane Rehm, Education, Marco Rubio, NPR, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Sesame Street | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
This New York Times photo feature is making the e-mail and Facebook rounds of Republicans and anti-Obamaniacs:
Then-candidate Barack Obama carrying a copy of Fareed Zakaria‘s best-selling book on why America has an optimistic future, The Post-American World, on the campaign trail in 2008
Should have noted, it’s making the rounds yet again.
In the note I got most recently, the sender posted this — probably a copy and paste message:
This picture will stun you
If each person sends this to a minimum of 20 people on their address list, in three days,
all people in The United States of America would have the message.
I believe this is one proposal that really should be passed around.
________________________________________________________________THIS WILL CURDLE YOUR BLOOD AND CURL YOUR HAIR
Description: cid:image001.jpg@01CCB96D.4D1AFD50
The name of the book Obama is reading is called: The Post-American World, and it was written by a fellow Muslim.
“Post” America means the World After America ! , Please forward this picture to everyone you know, conservative or liberal. , Democrat or Republican, Folks we need to be aware of what our president is thinking–or planning
We must expose Obama’s radical ideas and his intent to bring down our beloved America!
Oy. Where to begin with the factual corrections?
First, Zakaria is not exactly a Muslim extremist. He was born in India, a secular nation which practices religious diversity by law, his mother a former editor of The Sunday Times of India, his father a member of the popular Indian National Congress, the party of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, and Manmohan Singh, to mention four famous Prime Ministers of India.
Fareed Zakaria, [then
Third, it’s not about “after” America — it’s about life in the world after several other nations figure out the U.S. secrets to success (freedom and trade), and apply them to become, like the U.S., a world power. Not the world “after America,” but the world after the domination of America and Pax Americana. The note in the New York Times said:
Writing in the Book Review a few weeks ago, Joseph Joffe said about Zakaria’s book:
Zakaria’s is not another exercise in declinism. His point is not the demise of Gulliver, but the ”rise of the rest.” After all, how can this giant follow Rome and Britain onto the dust heap of empire if it can prosecute two wars at once without much notice at home? The granddaughters of those millions of Rosie the Riveters who kept the World War II economy going are off to the mall today; if they don’t shop till they drop, it’s because of recession, not rationing.
“Not another exercise in declinism.” Want to bet the people passing the photo around didn’t bother to read Zakaria’s book? Heck, they didn’t even bother to check it out on Amazon, or Wikipedia. Anyone who thinks this photo sinister clearly could use a good read of the book — if they can read.
Fourth, Zakaria’s book has an entire chapter on keeping the U.S. from falling into decline — it’s not a book to”bring down our beloved America,” but is instead a book aimed at doing the exact opposite. Zakaria outlines how the U.S. can maintain influence and power in a world where superpower influence is problematic rather than an enormous advantage at all times, and a world where trade is better than war.
Fifth, The Post-American World got a lot of praise from conservative, Republican- and Libertarian-leaning people when it was published. The pedestrian Wikipedia explained:
The Post-American World, at 292 pages long, was described as “a book-length essay”[5] and a “thin book that reads like one long, thoughtful essay”.[6] Written with an optimistic tone, it features little new research or reporting, but rather contains insights and identification of trends.[5] The reviewer for The Wall Street Journal described the tone as “infectious (though not naive) sunniness…but without Panglossian simplicity”.[1] The American Spectator reviewer noted that the prose had a journalistic style[7] while the reviewer for The Guardian noticed the writing sometimes displayed “news magazine mannerisms”.[8]
Zakaria’s view on globalisation was said to be similar to journalist and author Thomas Friedman.[9][10] Friedman reviewed The Post-American World and called it “compelling”.[11] The review in American Conservative compared this book with Rudyard Kipling‘s poems “Recessional” and “The White Man’s Burden“, both written at the height of British power and warning against imperial hubris.[12] The American Spectator review listed it as adding to similar themed books, comparing it to Oswald Spengler‘s The Decline of the West (1918), Arnold Toynbee‘s A Study of History, Paul Kennedy‘s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987), and Robert Kagan‘s The Return of History and the End of Dreams (2008).[7] Kagan labeled The Post-American World as “declinist”;[13] however, Martin Woollacott of The Guardian labeled Zakaria an exceptionalist.[8] The Commentary review added the works of Samuel P. Huntington and Francis Fukuyama to the list of comparisons and suggested there is now a sub-genre of books that consider the decline or demise of American hegemony.[14]
Wall Street Journal, American Spectator, Commentary — any self-respecting, halfway well-read neo-conservative would have all of those sources on her desk today.
Having read Zakaria’s book should be an indication of American patriotism. Dwight Garner’s comment at Art Beat, a blog of the New York Times, said the photo was a “stylish book-ad,” and he meant it as a compliment. He closed off his note:
Anyone know what book John McCain is — or should be — carrying around?
Grand question. I’ll wager McCain knows the book, if he hasn’t read it.
But what about Mitt Romney? I’ll wager he didn’t bother to read it. Rick Santorum? Surely not. Newt Gingrich probably read it quickly, over-analyzed it, found some minor issue of historical interpretation to disagree with, and pronounced it not worthy of actual citation.
The people who try to raise fears with the photo? They probably don’t read newspapers, don’t have library cards, and they hope to hell you’re too busy updating your Facebook profile to know anything at all about reality and world history. Would they send the photo around if they had Clue #1?
Sixth, the book came out in 2008. Even the paperbacks are in new editions with revisions, it’s been out so long.
How desperate are the Obama-obsessed folk? They’re so desperate they are recycling hoaxes from 2008. Worse, they find people willing to be hoaxed all over again, forgetting they got hoaxed back then.
Voter identification? How about a voter sanity check? Given a choice, a sane person might say “let illegal aliens vote, instead” — they know more about America and what makes it great than the perps of this hoax.
Is it significant that Zakaria has not been shy about criticizing serious policy errors promulgated by Republican candidates for president? Nah.
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35 Comments | Books, History, Hoaxes, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Books, Fareed Zakaria, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Hoaxes, Newsweek, Political Smear, Politics, Post-American World, President Obama, Rampant stupidity | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Found this on the Grist site today:
Grist infographic: Idea of climate change hoax makes no sense
The problem? Far too many people not only don’t weigh ideas to see if they make sense, but instead they actively seek out ideas, no matter how crazy, just because they like the concept.
In short, the fact that such a chart is necessary at all suggests that it may not be useful. Anyone who had the common sense to figure out that the globe is warming, and the scientists who say so are mostly honest as the day is long (and warm), won’t accept the judgment of Grist, either.
I mean, Peter Gleick exposed the immoral and perhaps illegal acts of the so-called Heartland Institute, virtually walking through the front door of the group’s offices and asking, “Will you show me all your dirty work?” John Mashey’s painstaking work confirms Gleick’s blowing the whistle on Heartland, and Heartland’s fellow travelers.
What has Heartlandgate brought? Heartland is spending thousands of dollars on a public relations campaign to impugn Gleick, and widely-read sites like the anti-science Watts Up get suckered in (well, Heartland was paying for Anthony Watts’ pet project . . . what should we expect?). Even Andrew Revkin at his New York Times Blog can’t find his way to label actions as they should be labeled.
Will it make a difference to state the facts, the common sense version of reality? My actual hope is that I am in error, and that such a graphic, if pasted around the internet, will make a difference.
Is my hope wholly misplaced?
Update: At the Washington Post blogs, Stephen Stromberg wrote that Gleick erred by failing to follow the rule that climate scientists must be more than twice as morally straight as the “skeptics.” I’m not convinced Gleick erred; he’s done yeoman service to exposing the truth. I’m struggling to find any illegal act he committed. Heartland claims there may be some fraud, but not all the elements of any crime of fraud are present. If, as Heartland argues, the documents are fakes, there was no value lost. If, as most of us suspect, the documents are not fakes, I still see no harm to Heartland in their having their feet held the fire on being honest with the IRS and the public. Heartland claims an absolute right to fib to the public, and somehow Mr. Gleick interfered? Where’s the harm to the public good? Certainly not in exposing Heartland’s dark secrets. No harm, no crime, in this case.
10 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, CO2, Global warming, Hoaxes, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science | Tagged: Climate change, environment, Global warming, Grist, Hoaxes, Rampant stupidity, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Conservatives get crazier every day: In Indiana, a state representative urges colleagues to vote against a resolution honoring Girl Scouts of America, for imaginary reasons.
A state legislator has sent a letter to fellow Republican members of the Indiana House saying he will not support a resolution celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts because he believes it is a “radicalized organization” that supports abortion and promotes homosexuality.
In a letter obtained by The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne on Monday, Rep. Bob Morris of Fort Wayne said he did some research on the Internet and found allegations that the Girl Scouts are a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood, allow transgender females to join and encourage sex.
“After talking to some well-informed constituents, I did a small amount of web-based research, and what I found is disturbing,” Morris wrote in his letter, which also accused the group of promoting “homosexual lifestyles.”
Morris sent the letter to House Republicans on Saturday.
Ashley Sharp, spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts of Northern Indiana-Michiana, said Monday a statement on the group’s website states that it leaves sex and reproduction questions to parents. The group accepts transgender youth on a case-by-case basis.
Morris is the only House member to refuse to sign a resolution honoring the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts that lawmakers approved last week. He told the Journal Gazette that others would join him in opposing the resolution but later recanted that statement in an interview with The Associated Press.
That old “some research on the Internet” as a source.
It’s scary people can be so delusional without resorting to psychotropic drugs. Is this guy smoking the same stuff Rick Santorum and Rick Perry smoke?
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5 Comments | Girl Scouts, Political Smear, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party | Tagged: Girl Scouts, Indiana, Political Smear, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Rep. Bob Morris, Republican Party | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Birthers are still claiming the Earth is flat, still looking for a missing link, still claiming Judge Crater didn’t go missing, and still embarrassing America?
Yep.
Barack Obama’s Long Form Birth Certificate – image from Snopes.com (available many places)
Orly Taitz was in court in Georgia, losing another case because she lacks even a whiff of a scintilla of an iota of evidence to back any of her claims that President Barack Obama was not born in Honolulu, Hawaii, as his now-released long-form birth certificate, short-form birth certificate, contemporary newspapers, eyewitnesses and all other evidence indicate. They have no evidence, and they have clowns for lawyers:
In court filings, Obama’s legal team has called the “birther” allegations baseless and the criticisms of his birth records “patently unfounded.” The filings also noted 68 similar challenges filed have been dismissed and, during a 2009 challenge, a federal judge in Columbus fined Taitz $20,000 for “frivolous” litigation.
But I stumbled onto a wildly misnamed blog, The Constitution Club*, where the issue is given credence and way too many electrons.
(Are lobotomies legal, again? Can people perform self-lobotomies? Just wondering.)
I added some references to sites in the real world, so that anyone not totally insane might find an anchor in reality and follow the threads back to the light.
The post’s author, Daniella Nicole, tried to make a defense of the birthers insane, destructive antics.
I responded, but you never can tell when the birthers will plug their ears, cover their eyes and start singing “Born in the U.S.A.” at the top of their lungs to avoid information that would require them to appear sober. My comment went straight to “moderation.” Probably too many links, or too many high-quality links (thank you, Cornell University Law Library’s Legal Information Institute). For the record, here’s my last reply to Daniella Nicole:
I daresay any of the GOP contenders, or to use your reference, SNL’s the Church Lady, Frankie and Willie or one of the Coneheads, would all be better than the clown (or Homey D. Clown from In Living Color, if you will) currently in office.
Excuse me. I had mistaken you for an American, a patriot, and someone who bears no ill will to the American people.
Unless Obama has lied about who his father is and the birth certificate is a fraud (which would raise other legal issues), Obama is NOT a natural born citizen. Period.
“Born on American soil” means “natural born American citizen.” Obama was born on American soil. End of your argument.
BUT, had he been born on foreign soil, with one American citizen parent, he would still be a natural born citizens — as is John McCain, born in Panama (and not on a military base, but in the local Panama hospital).
Remind me never to refer any of my clients or friends to you for immigration advice.
The Supreme Court actually set the precedent of defining natural born as born of two American citizen parents in the 1875 case Minor v. Happersett. Note it was not a dicta, which is an authoritative statement by a court that is not legally binding, but an actual precedent, which is a rule of law established for the first time by a court and is referred to by other courts afterwards.
The holding in Minor was that women are not voting citizens. The case dealt with Mrs. Minor’s attempt to register to vote. Obama is not a woman, and the issue you’re talking about has nothing to do with registering to vote. So, if the case says what you claim, it MUST be in obiter dicta. [Obiter dicta means those parts of the decision in which the court explains how and why it ruled as it did, but NOT the key ruling itself.] No offense, but you really could use some legal training. At least get a Black’s Law dictionary, will you?
Here, read excerpts from the opinion:
The question is presented in this case, whether, since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, a woman, who is a citizen of the United States and of the State of Missouri, is a voter in that State, notwithstanding the provision of the constitution and laws of the State, which confine the right of suffrage to men alone. We might, perhaps, decide the case upon other grounds, but this question is fairly made. From the opinion we find that it was the only one decided in the court below, and it is the only one which has been argued here. The case was undoubtedly brought to this court for the sole purpose of having that question decided by us, and in view of the evident propriety there is of having it settled, so far as it can be by such a decision, we have concluded to waive all other considerations and proceed at once to its determination.
So it would be error to claim the case got to the issue of who is a “natural born citizen” at all. It did not.
And, had you read the case, you’d know that. In fact, the case says the opposite of what you claim. It says:
Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides [n6] that “no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” [n7] and that Congress shall have power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. The words “all children” are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as “all persons,” and if females are included in the last they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.
Under the power to adopt a uniform system of naturalization Congress, as early as 1790, provided “that any alien, being a free white person,” might be admitted as a citizen of the United States, and that the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under twenty-one years of age at the time of such naturalization, should also be considered citizens of the United States, and that the children of citizens of the United States that might be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, should be considered as natural-born citizens. [n8] These provisions thus enacted have, in substance, been retained in all the naturalization laws adopted since. In 1855, however, the last provision was somewhat extended, and all persons theretofore born or thereafter to be born out of the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were, or should be at the time of their birth, citizens of the United States, were declared to be citizens also. [n9]
If you’re going to opine on citizenship, you would do well to read a summary of actual citizenship law, and don’t take the odd rantings of anti-Obama people on the internet.
Dani said:
Interestingly, many refer to Vattel’s definition of natural born (which is essentially the same thing and may have influenced the founders in their work on the Constitution), but it is not Vattel that sets legal precedent. The Supreme Court can and did set the precedent in the matter in 1875.
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) most assuredly did not rule that a child must have two U.S. citizen parents to be a citizen, nor to be a “natural born” citizen. Read the case’s key sections above.
The precedent that is important here is the presidency of Chester Alan Arthur, a man who, like Obama, had a father born in a foreign country, and who was not a citizen of the U.S. at the time of Arthur’s birth. While opponents tried to make an issue of this in the campaign of 1880, it was a non-starter. You know the rest — Arthur was elected vice president under James Garfield, and ascended to the presidency upon Garfield’s death after being shot (no, Orly Taitz was not the shooter). So, had Hapersett had anything to do with presidential eligibility, it would have applied to Arthur. Since Arthur served out his term as president, it’s pretty clear that the actual precedent supports Obama’s eligibility 100%.
Somebody told you a tall tale about the case — it’s about whether a woman may vote, not about what is a natural born citizen. Seriously, how could anyone confuse those issues?
Congress in 2008 (including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) also defined natural born as having been born to two American citizen parents when a challenge to John McCain’s eligibility was issued.So, even by the standard and definition of Congress, including Obama himself, he is not legally qualified or eligible.
1. That was a non-binding resolution, stating the opinion of the U.S. Senate.
2. The resolution, S. Res. 511 in the 110th Congress, ( does NOT say “two American citizen parents,” but instead refers to children born to “Americans.” Obama’s mother was an American.
3. Obama was born on American soil, and so the resolution, covering kids born outside the U.S., is inapplicable, and off the mark.Obama was not born to two American citizen parents, by his own admission and via the birth certificate which he has provided to America. Ergo, he is not a natural born American citizen and does not meet the Constitutional requirement for the office of President of the United States of America. As such, not only is he not legally qualified to be in the office he currently holds, but he is not legally eligible to be on any ballot in the U.S. for the upcoming election. Period.
Except, none of the laws you cite says what you’d need it to say. Obama is natural born because he was born in the U.S. He is also natural born having been a child of a U.S. citizen. He is fully legally qualified — at least, to people who know the law, and who appreciate that it’s necessary to follow the laws.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Your wishes do not change the law. Your misstatements of the cases and the laws do not change the laws. Your wish to find something bad against Obama, a good man and a good president, does not give you a leg to stand on, nor a horse to ride.
And how, pray tell, is using legal means to resolve serious legal matters “polluting the courts”? That is what they are there for.
Junk lawsuits. Nuisance suits. Orly Taitz has already been fined for making these nuisance claims. The evidence needed to challenge Obama’s eligibility simply does not exist, except in the fevered and overactive imaginations of those crazies. The stuff in Georgia this last week is a supreme embarrassment to America — but thank God, the courts got it right.
But by all means, continue to stamp your foot and blather on about this. Your work on this insane and hopeless issue keeps you off the streets, and out of real politics. You can’t do damage to a school board race while you’re lost in the ozone on citizenship and Obama.
_____________
* Maybe by “Constitution Club” they mean “a club with which to beat the Constitution,” and not a group of people joining together in a noble cause, you think?
Earlier at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub
123 Comments | Barack Obama, Citizenship, Law, Politics, President Obama, Presidential Eligibility, Rampant stupidity, U.S. Constitution, U.S. Senate | Tagged: Barack Obama, Citizenship, Constitution, Elections, Law, Minor v. Happersett, Natural-born-citizen clause of the U.S. Constitution, Orly Taitz, Presidential Eligibility, Rampant stupidity | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You didn’t think it was working already?
This story appeared in the Los Angeles Times, which is why Republicans discourage newspaper publishing, and why they discourage programs to teach people to read well and remember history.
In South Carolina, a discrepancy on federal spending
Campaigning Republicans draw cheers with their calls for cuts to government programs. But the state benefits from such programs to a greater extent than many others.
By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times
January 14, 2012, 7:55 p.m.
Reporting from Beaufort, S.C.—
When Rick Santorum stood in front of voters at a yacht club in this small town and pledged to slash government spending, especially entitlement programs, Nancy Garvin knew she had found her candidate.
Garvin, 54, said she was sick of seeing government squander money through agencies that don’t do anything, and wants expenditures cut “in half.”
Washington is throwing money away through a lot of wasteful spending,” she said, sitting at a picnic table beneath trees draped in graying Spanish moss.
But Garvin, whose husband, a carpenter, has been out of work for four years, depends on the very government she wants to see cut back. She collects disability insurance — it is what she and her husband have survived on as he’s looked for work. Her mother is on Social Security. Garvin herself used to work as a nurse at a hospital where many patients paid for services through Medicaid, another program using federal money.
Garvin’s views are similar to those of many Republican voters in this conservative state, where candidates pledging to cut government spending were met with resounding applause last week, and where former Gov. Mark Sanford tried to refuse federal stimulus funding on principle.
South Carolina and its residents benefit from government spending, more so than many other states. For every dollar the state pays in federal taxes, it receives $1.35 in federal government benefits. By contrast, California receives only 78 cents for every dollar it pays in taxes.
“We get more back from the federal government than we send in terms of revenue,” said Doug Woodward, an economics professor at the University of South Carolina. “But I’m not sure that a lot of voters would even care if they heard that. When they say they want to see less spending in the state, they’re referring to entitlement programs.”
Much of the money spent in South Carolina goes to the programs that make up a big chunk of the federal budget — defense, Social Security and Medicaid. The state has seven military bases, and received $7 billion in Defense Department spending in 2010. One in five residents in South Carolina receives Social Security benefits — compared with just 13% in California. As an aging state, South Carolina will be more dependent on federal programs such as Social Security in the coming decade, according to AARP.
“People want to see lower government spending, especially on the Republican side,” said Karen Kedrowski, a politics professor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. “But when they’re asked specifically about high-dollar items, including Social Security and defense, they are not willing to accept significant cuts.”
Kedrowski’s university recently polled South Carolina Republicans to ask about reducing the deficit by making cuts to government programs: 73% of voters said they weren’t willing to have their current Social Security or Medicare benefits reduced to address budget concerns. More than half said they weren’t willing to cut defense spending either.
It’s not just wealthy Republican voters in the Palmetto State who say they eschew entitlement programs, Kedrowski said.
“There’s also a disproportionate number of low-income people who vote Republican because they respond to the populist messages, even when it is against their economic interests to do so,” she said.
Sheila Barton, 56, runs a floral shop in Pickens, a town that Rick Perry visited recently to stroll down Main Street and shake hands with store owners and residents.
“Americans don’t want a government that’s playing a bigger role in their lives,” Perry had said at a speech earlier that morning. “No one’s ever come up to me and said, ‘We sure need to have more government in our lives.'”
Barton agrees — in principle.
“There’s a lot of things that are wasteful,” she said, but when pressed to name some, she said she couldn’t really think of any off the top of her head. Defense spending should be increased, she said, and people who have paid into Social Security should receive their benefits. And local government programs need more funding, she said — she’s currently a guardian for local children through the court system.
There is some evidence that South Carolina’s opposition to government spending might further strangle the state’s already weak economy — if it leads to cuts in Social Security. Roberto Gallardo of the Southern Rural Development Center says that economies in many small towns in South Carolina are increasingly dependent on Social Security payments.
The percentage of total personal income in South Carolina coming from Social Security’s Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance programs was 7.6% in 2009, up from 3.8% in 1970. South Carolina ranks eighth in the nation on the group’s Social Security Dependency Index, which measures how reliant local economies are on Social Security payments for job creation and consumer spending. Neighboring North Carolina ranked 23rd.
That means candidates have to walk a fine line here — promising to cut government to alleviate voters’ fears, while still preserving the programs that require most of the spending. How else to appeal to such voters as Clifton Anderson of Camden, who went to see Rick Santorum speak in a diner in Ridgeway?
“His ideas of downsizing government are most important to me,” said Anderson, about Santorum. He continued, in the next breath: “I also like his idea about strengthening defense.”
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
2 Comments | 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Education, Government, How do we know what we know, Rampant stupidity, War on Education, War on Smart | Tagged: 2012 Campaign, Campaigns, Education, Government Spending, How do we know what we know, Politics, Rampant stupidity, South Carolina, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Mercury poisoning marches through our culture with a 400-year-old trail, at least. “Mad as a hatter” refers to the nerve damage hatmakers in Europe demonstrated, nerve damage we now know came from mercury poisoning.
In the 20th century annals of pollution control, the Minimata disaster stands as a monument to unintended grotesque consequences of pollution, of mercury poisoning.
A key Japanese documentary on the disaster is now available from Zakka Films on DVD, with English subtitles.
Anyone who scoffs at EPA’s four-decades of work to reduce mercury pollution should watch this film before bellyaching about damage to industry if we don’t allow industry to kill babies and kittens in blind, immoral pursuit of profit at public expense.
American Elephants, for example, is both shameless and reckless in concocting lies about mercury pollution regulation (that site will not allow comments that do not sing in harmony with the pro-pollution campaign (I’d love for someone to prove me wrong)). Almost every claim made at that post is false. Mercury is not harmless; mercury from broken CFL bulbs cannot begin to compare to mercury in fish and other animals; mercury pollution is not minuscule (mercury warnings stand in all 48 contiguous states, warning against consumption of certain fish). President Obama has never urged anything but support for the coal-fired power industry — although he has expressed concerns about pollution, as any sane human would.
Republicans have lost their moral compass, and that loss is demonstrated in the unholy campaign for pollution, the campaign against reducing mercury emissions. It’s tragic. Action will be required in November to stop the tragedy from spreading. Will Americans respond as they should at the ballot boxes?
Can you watch “Minimata: The Victims and Their World,” and not urge stronger controls on mercury emissions? Can you support the murder of children and workers, for profit?
2 Comments | air pollution, Coal, Disasters, Disease, Environmental protection, Health care, Politics, Public health, Rampant stupidity, Science | Tagged: air pollution, Coal-fired Power Plants, Disasters, Disease, Environmental protection, EPA, health, History, Mercury Pollution, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
What to do about the economic ditch the Republicans have driven the economy into?
No, seriously: Jon Huntsman’s economics advisor, a woman with years of experience working for a balanced budget, suggested that Paul’s proposal of cutting $1 trillion from spending in 2013 lacks a great connection to reality. Aides to the other three, after taking another toke of godknowswhat, said they could do even more cutting.
It’s as if General Washington’s physicians, interviewed December 15, 1799, claimed they could have saved Washington’s life had they bled him two or three more times — but unfortunately, he was out of blood.
At a Wednesday panel discussion hosted by the America’s Future Foundation, a club of young libertarians and conservatives in Washington who meet regularly over beer to network and debate about politics, Jennifer Pollom, Huntsman’s economic director, joined campaign aides for Gary Johnson, Ron Paul and a former Mitt Romney staffer to discuss why their candidate would best represent conservatives as the presidential nominee of the Republican Party. The real fun (by D.C. standards) started when Jack Hunter, a blogger for Paul’s presidential campaign, touted his boss’s promise to slash $1 trillion from the federal budget.
“Having been on the Budget Committee and having worked in the federal government and in the Senate for quite a while, I think a trillion dollars is kind of ludicrous,” said Pollom, who formerly served as the counsel for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. “That’s my personal opinion, that is not the stance of Governor Huntsman. We’re more concerned about tax policy right now. We’re deeply concerned about the deficit and the debt, but we’re more concerned about jobs and freezing spending where it is right now.”
That didn’t play well with the representatives for Johnson and Paul, two of the most libertarian-leaning candidates in the race. (Johnson’s plan goes further than Paul’s. He has vowed to balance the budget in his first year, which would require cutting even more than $1 trillion.)
“To call that ludicrous is actually a little surprising because this idea that we can year after year continue to spend more money than we’re taking in, to me that actually seems to be the pretty ludicrous idea from a fiscally conservative perspective,” said panelist Jonathan Bydlak, the finance director for Johnson’s campaign.
“I personally think that cutting a trillion dollars in one year off the budget–I use ‘ludicrous’ sort of loosely–but I don’t think it’s practical,” Pollom said later during the panel. “It may be an excellent aspirational dream but speaking in the real world, I don’t know that it’s actually practically going to happen.”
That’s when Derek Khanna, a panelist who worked for Mitt Romney’s finance team in 2008, jumped in.
“The idea of one trillion is not ludicrous,” Khanna said, which prompted Pollom to put her finger to her head like she was pulling the trigger of a gun. “I think that the idea of saying that being able to balance the budget is ‘ludicrous’ is kind of disturbing. We’re all here saying we support the balanced-budget amendment, but in the end we won’t support cutting a trillion dollars. It seems to be a bit disingenuous.”
What in the world could these stooges be referring to in cutting? I can see it now: ‘What do we need Homeland Security for, anyway? FAA doesn’t fly any airplanes — what could possibly happen if we just shut the agency down tomorrow? Surely we don’t need more than one aircraft carrier, one for the Pacific, and one for the Atlantic — we don’t have any territory in the Southern, Indian, or Arctic Oceans.’
You can almost hear Ron Paul, wide-eyed, explaining: ‘President Obama is hurting the energy industry. BP found a way to quickly get millions of barrels of oil out of ground under the Gulf of Mexico, oil we need to run industry — but Obama made them stop!’
In other news, perhaps, The Onion is considering closing down — they can’t parody this stuff any more.
3 Comments | 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Economics, Government, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: 2012 Campaign, Economics, Finance, Government, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
. . . we could solve all energy crises forevermore.
Over at Watt’s Up With That, the leading anti-science blog on the web, Anthony Watt turned the podium over to the indefatigable, often inscrutable, sometimes-funny-but-almost-always wrong, Willis Eschenbach, who worries about when solar power may run out:
Their study includes “renewable” sources like solar, although I’ve never found out exactly how they plan to renew the sun once it runs out.
In a just and sane world, Dave Barry would be preparing to sue Eschenbach for infringing on Barry’s humor patent.
Just when will energy from Old Sol run out? The Sun will die one day, but well after President Obama’s second term has expired, and long after all current photo-voltaic devices have worn out from providing cheap energy.
The facts:
Vodpod videos no longer available.Our Sun won’t last forever. Dr. Carolyn Brinkworth explains the ramifications for our home planet in this ‘Ask an Astronomer’ video.
What Will Happen to the Earth When the Sun Dies?, posted with vodpod
Shorter Eschenbach: Don’t worry about cleaning the air to fight global warming, because in the looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong run, we’re all dead. Certainly after 4 billion years.
42 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Global warming, Hoaxes, Humor, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Climate change, Global warming, Hoaxes, Humor, Photovoltaics, Rampant stupidity, Solar Power, Watts Up With That, Willis Eschenbach | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A veteran Republican Congressional insider wrote:
To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.
It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.
The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel — how prudent is that? — in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.
Sheesh! And I thought they were crazy in 1985!
David Badash analyzed Lofgren’s article, at the New Civil Rights Movement:
GOP veteran Congressional staffer of 28 years, Mike Lofgren, who retired in June, just published a 6114 word attack on today’s Republican party, classifying them as “an apocalyptic cult” “full of lunatics.” Unsurprisingly, it’s gone viral. Included within Lofrgren’s 28 years in Congress is his “16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees,” according to his bio. James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, calls Lofgren “a familiar and highly esteemed figure.” Lofgren likens today’s Republican Party to the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic, and observes that “legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.”
Also unsurprisingly, Lofgren talks about the GOP’s attacks on same-sex marriage, several times.
And almost exactly like we at The New Civil Rights Movement have been doing, Lofgren particularly targets Steve King, Michele Bachman, Paul Broun, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, and Allen West. (Good to know we’re on the right track!)
6 Comments | Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party | Tagged: Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Barack Obama has managed to tack on a bit over a trillion dollars to the national debt, mostly in a successful effort to keep the U.S. and the world from plunging into a Greater Depression. We haven’t shaken off the harmful effects of the Republican assault on capitalism during the previous years’ assaults on the Constitution, science, education and other American institutions.
But in the alternate universe of conservative thought, Obama’s put $15 trillion in new debts on the books. Being off by a factor of 10 to 15 is an accomplishment worthy of someone wholly unconnected with reality. That would be Victor Davis Hanson in this case. Not sure why, but some search took me to a blog called The Clue Batting Cage — batting away clues to reality is a sport to them, I suppose. There I found this post:
Here’s some excellent wording from Victor Davis Hanson.
Despite nearly $15 trillion in federal debt, the administration apparently wants to defy the rules of logic and do more of what made things worse in the first place, under the euphemism of “investments.” American popular culture has coined all sorts of proverbial warnings about such mindless devotion to destructive rote: “Don’t flog a dead horse,” “If you are in a hole, stop digging,” and “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
No matter: The administration still adheres to the logical fallacy that the toxic medicine cannot be proven to be useless or harmful, because there was supposedly never enough of it given. And the proof is that the worsening patient is still not quite dead.
:
That there is never enough spending is a seductive fallacy because it never requires any empirical proof: If millions of those supported by the state have lost their self-reliance and self-initiative, perhaps it is because millions supported by the state were not supported well enough, and so in response, some resorted to stealing things they could not afford.
How many others could possibly be with these yahoos, looking through the telescope backwards?
Looking through a telescope the wrong way. Unknown source.
Here’s what I posted in comments:
It’s difficult to reconcile the idea of someone who recommends Bob Park’s blog, and approves of Victor Hanson’s blather at the same time.
But then I look closer. You missed the boat completely. You didn’t even recommend the right Bob Park, but some imposter named Parks. You missed reality by one letter.
Reality is not an opinion, not that I expect you’ll ever change your opinion on that.
Lay off of Morgan’s blog for a while, maybe read some science or something. You may not feel better in the morning, but soon, and for the rest of your life.
9:38 PM
The author complains that my comments are too acid, and that the National Science Foundation is a “government site.”
If you call a private foundation the government supports, independent from the government by design to keep its advice unbiased, does that make it a government site?
Or is it still a four-legged calf?
A wise person said that you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t get to by reason in the first place. That’s the problem with the Tea Party in the first place. It’s also the problem in the second place, and the third place, and on all issues.
To the Tea Party mindset, they are all five-legged dogs.
Tea Party’s five-legged dog, by Esther Derby.com
59 Comments | Accuracy, Capitalism, Economics, History, Politics, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Accuracy, Capitalism, Economics, History, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Reason | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
House Speaker John Boehner famously said that he thought the Republicans got 98% of what they wanted in the debt ceiling agreement, crappy as it was. Then, late Friday, Standard & Poor’s announced they had downgraded the U.S. government’s previously unsullied credit rating. God forbid Republicans had gotten 100%, eh?
Ben Hoffman urges us to read the Standard and Poor’s report on why the rating company downgraded U.S. credit.
S&P Explicitly Blames Republicans For Credit Downgrade
by Ben Hoffman
Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.
Obama should have let the Bush tax cuts expire last year, which would have dramatically reduced our deficit. The Republicans held the unemployed hostage and Obama negotiated a bad deal with the domestic terrorists.
Is there more in that report we should read before we get the torches, tar and feathers to meet with our Republican representatives in August town meetings? Would they get the message with polite questions?
183 Comments | Economics, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party, U.S. Congress | Tagged: Economics, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Republican Party, Standard & Poor's, U.S. Congress | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 