Off the Cliff

The bizarre (and long discredited) claims that President Obama isn’t a U.S. citizen keep coming from the far right. So is Texas-based Vision America, a religious-right organization headed by Rick Scarborough in Lufkin, now jumping off the crazy cliff? Seems that way.

In an e-mail — signed by Scarborough — to supporters today, the organization charges that the president is trying to keep the truth from the American people:

To date, though numerous requests have been made, the President has not provided proof of his citizenship. The Constitutionality of the current President of the United States is brought into question, and this simply cannot remain unchallenged.

Obama has spent between almost $1 million in legal fees in an effort to keep his birth certificate and school records private, which is unheard of in the history of the United States presidency. Last year, after much intense pressure to do so, Obama finally released his Certification of Live Birth in Hawaii. This differs from a Certificate of Live Birth in that it is shorter and does not list any names of hospitals, doctors or any signatures.

Hawaiian government agencies do not even recognize the Certification of Live Birth as poof of an individual’s birth in Hawaii! They require additional verification before it is accepted as an official document.

All of this could be cleared up by Obama simply producing a certified copy of his birth certificate. I guess transparency has its limits.

Actually, it could be cleared up if political extremists stopped lying. As we noted, claims that President Obama isn’t a natural-born U.S. citizen were long ago debunked after exhaustive investigation.

Of course, Scarborough isn’t alone in his absurd skepticism about President Obama’s citizenship. Last year Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, wrote that then-candidate Obama had failed to prove that he was a “natural born citizen” of the United States.

Stormfront.org (White Pride World Wide) has devoted an entire forum to the topic. And a Google search for “Is Obama a citizen?” turned up 297,000 hits, many directing readers to far-right sites with bloggers, commentators and others frothing at the mouth over the issue.

It’s as if folks on the far right have collectively decided to jump off a cliff together. Yet not only are some of these folks seen as respected religious “leaders,” some even manage to get elected to public office — even to the State Board of Education.

22 thoughts on “Off the Cliff

  1. 2000 Inconsistencies in presidential election, SCOTUS decision in favor of Bush: NOT CURIOUS (no signs of activist judges or Floridian hijinks)

    2008 No major inconsistencies in presidential election: CURIOUS, VERY CURIOUS

  2. They cannot fathom that the American people elected him by a landslide and rejected them. How was this possible? And he was black to boot. No one in their right mind could elect one of “them” President. How was that possible?

    Charles Answers:

    Aw shucks. That one’s easy. For 8 years, we had a President who, as a matter of fact, really was one of “them.” Millions of Americans figured out that fact and the fact that their government was being run by a peanut gallery of raving, looney fruitcakes who have nightmares about imaginary missing birth certificates rather than dying children. Therefore, because we sane Americans are given a chance to do so every four years, we millions decided to hold a little American Revolution of our own to get rid of “them.” No fruitcakes in government!!! That’s my motto. Please join me and lets say it together, “No fruitcakes in government!!!’ Sounds good doesn’t it.

  3. And here is another nice “Christian” excerpt from fruitcake Scarborough’s website:

    “Boston Medical Center has sued the state of Massachusetts over the state’s universal healthcare system. According to The New York Times, the 626-bed hospital — which is the primary teaching facility for Boston University School of Medicine — faces a $38 million deficit and will lose close to $100 million more in the coming year. Hospital officials say the shortfall is due to the state’s universal healthcare system which forces them to cover the healthcare costs of poor people.”

    Outrageous. Gosh. They lost $100,000,000 because of trying to help poor people who were sick. Do you know how many new bass boats and deer rifles that would have bought? We could have let them all die and saved a huge amount of dough for the really important things in life.

    You and your fruitcake friends have lost your way “Ricky Boy,” and I have proof:

    But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (I Timothy 6: 6-10)

  4. “Please join me and lets say it together, “No fruitcakes in government!!!’ Sounds good doesn’t it.”

    That’s why I’m not a public servant; I love fruitcake.

  5. I would like to point out that John McCain failed to prove that he’s a natural born US citizen prior to running for the presidency. Furthermore, George W. Bush, William Clinton, George HW Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, to my knowledge, also failed to provide PROOF of their US citizenship.

  6. “Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

    – John Kenneth Galbraith

  7. The video clip also includes the newspaper announcement from 1961 in the Hawaii paper of his birth to Mr. and Mrs. Barak H. Obama.

  8. And Jesus Christ was not born in the United States. And I thought JC was supposed to be the be-all and end-all.

    Barack Obama, however, was born in the United States. If memory serves, he was born in Hawaii in 1961. Hawaii became a state in 1959.

    What do y’all want to bet that these “birthers” all have white bedsheets with eye holes in them stashed away in their closets.

  9. Ignorance is is bad, but stupidity is worse. These birthers are hiding behind their racism. They just cannot accept the fact that Obama won back in November, and to see him and his family in the WH is highly offensive to them. As a person living in America who happens to be black, I get where they’re coming from, in fact, I had a feeling deep inside that some in this society would reject him, not because he’s incompetent, but because of their own biases. And I was correct. When you are a child of segregation, live through the Civil Rights Movement era, witness the desegregation of the schools, see Eisenhower, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, GHW Bush, and GW Bush in the White House, you gain a lot of experience and perspective in dealing with people like these. Add to the experience and perspective the fact that you’ve lived in the South all of your life,an it just sharpens your senses when it comes to folks like these birthers. President Obama will do what folks like him have done all their lives in order to reach a measure of success in this society: work hard and stay the course. That’s what I did which allowed me to end a 33 year teaching career back in May of this year. The president won’t respond to them. They’re not worth his time. He’s got a country to run and citizens to look out for. These birther-type bozos did not stop me, and they won’t stop him, but, hey, I like a little laugh now and then when I hear what new antics they’re up to.

  10. Wait. I know what really happened. In 1961, an expectant white mother from Kansas, who had moved to Hawaii, was pregnant and soon to deliver her first child. She was worried about the pain of delivery. What if the delivery went badly and she needed a C-section? What if the baby were born with a severe health problem that needed immediate post-natal critical care? What if she needed such care? A mother’s death from childbirth had been fairly common only a few decades before in the United States. What if something awful happened? Frightened out of their wits at the possibilities, the poor college student couple boarded their private jet and secretly flew to Kenya where where she would be able to deliver the baby safely in a rural, dirt-floored, tin-roofed shanty presided over by a local witchdoctor.

    Tragedy did occur during the birth. The baby was born with a congenital disorder that needed to be treated immediately with a specially blessed medication made from ground yohimbe bark, warthog tusk, and a special ingredient known as “Testicle of Timon.” Within days, the baby was cured, but not quickly enough to prevent permanent splaying of the ears. Saved by Kenyan folk medicine, the poor student couple flew to England on their private jet and bought deluxe passage to New York City on the Queen Mary. After disembarking, they initiated an immediate search for “Guido the Forger” to acquire a fake Hawaiian birth certificate so their son would be nominally covered 47 years later when he ran for President of the United States, as foretold by a Masai shaman shortly after the baby’s birth. With the forged birth certificate in hand and while the poor college student couple’s private jet was undergoing scheduled maintenance (paid for by exchanging food stamps for dollars), Howard Hughes personally flew the young couple and their baby back to their three-room student dump in the Aloha state.

    What do ya think folks?

  11. Fundamentalists are fighting with all of their power to reclaim whatever they can after a huge blow to their political dreams. With Obama’s landslide victory over the cons, it shows that the majority of Americans are not conservative and not fundamentalist. We still have to be on guard. Those fundamentalists are trying to take over America. If you haven’t done so already, watch “Jesus Camp”. It is very chilling. It reminds me of “Children of the Corn” and the kid with rat tail named Levi is like the leader “Isaac”.

  12. It would be funny were it not so pitiful, and were it not keeping people from thinking about serious issues.

    1. The claim that Obama spent about $1 million defending against these lunatic nuisance suits arose from an April Fool’s prank letter, covered well at Snopes.com.

    2. Statutes in Hawaii require all state agencies to recognize the COLB as the document that verifies Hawaiian births. Under Hawaiian law, such documents must accurately portray the place of birth; many states offer such a certificate to residents who were born overseas, in order to expedite business that requires such identity inside the U.S. — but all states require those forms to show the accurate place of birth. The claim that the COLB is not recognized by Hawaiian agencies and the rest of the U.S. demonstrates either a dramatic ignorance of the law or a great distaste for the law and the Constitution.

    3. Obama posted on the internet a certified copy of his birth documents, complete with the seal of the State of Hawaii. The presence of the seal of the state means that the state vouches for the accuracy of the document — documents under seal being the highest order of authentication under U.S. law, statutory and common law. These clowns refused to accept that as the law requires. From two separate newspapers contemporaneous with Obama’s birth in Honolulu, we have recordings of the vital records of the State of Hawaii, transmitted from the state. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, each of those newspapers is a self-proving document adequate to establish Obama’s birth in Honolulu for all legal purposes, including the obtaining of a passport, or any other official use.

    If the birth denialists won’t accept the highest forms of proof we have, what should make us think they will accept anything at all?

    Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha all three appeared on David Letterman’s show to vouch for Obama’s being a citizen, and they brought along George Washington as a character reference.

    Rick Scarborough was watching Lou Dobbs, and missed it.

  13. Speaking of Jesus, I’m watching the Sotomayor debate in the Senate. After listening to Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Sessions, I have come to this conclusion: Obama could have nominated Jesus, and most of the Republicans still would have voted no because they would have wanted God and only God.

    BTW, here’s a funny view on the birther debate:

    http://tinyurl.com/nsjx6y

  14. J.J. I disagree with the assertion that Republicans would have voted against Jesus. According to Christians, Jesus IS God.

    Read the Nicene Creed. Take note of: “….And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”

    The Athanasian Creed says: “….For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.”

    The Apostle’s Creed says of Jesus Christ: “….Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead….”

    I think the above makes it pretty clear that Christians equate Jesus with God. So, a vote for Jesus would be a vote for God, and a vote against Jesus would be a vote against God.

  15. “I think the above makes it pretty clear that Christians equate Jesus with God.”

    Nothing you posted says anything about the fact that Republicans/Religious right would have nothing to do with someone who advocates for the poor and forgotten. He’d be run out of town on a rail, with a “kick me-I’m a hippie” stuck on his back.

  16. Trog69, please re-read what J.J. wrote and what I wrote. I was addressing J.J.’s comment “….most of the Republicans still would have voted no because they would have wanted God and only God.” I wasn’t addressing Jesus’ economics, and I didn’t read into J.J.’s post that he/she was either.

    What I wrote was addressing the issue of whether or not Jesus qualifies as God. The doctrine of the trinity says most definitively Jesus was and is God. About this there is no question. Ask a Christian.

    But you do make the point that Repubnik Christians have rejected Jesus’ economics which were far closer to socialism than capitalism. Repubnik Christians are far more interested in “storing up treasures on earth” than in “storing up treasures in heaven.” They have cherry-picked their own god’s teaching in the same way they cherry-pick verses from the “Old Testament,” the mounting scientific evidence for global climate change, and the alleged WMD in Iraq are three examples.

    If you read my other posts I think I’ve been crystal clear about my thinking on these things.