Is Barack Obama a brilliant orator, captivating millions through his eloquence? Or is he deliberately using the techniques of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a covert form of hypnosis developed by Milton Erickson, M.D.?
A fundamental tool of “conversational hypnosis” is pacing and leading—a way for the hypnotist to bypass the listener’s critical faculty by associating repeated statements that are unquestionably accurate with the message he wants to convey.
Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history. Their numbers are equivalent to the entire British and American navies combined; their tonnage is far greater. Container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers - all should be steaming fully laden between China, Britain, Europe and the US, stocking camera shops, PC Worlds and Argos depots ahead of the retail pandemonium of 2009. But their water has been stolen.
They are a powerful and tangible representation of the hurricanes that have been wrought by the global economic crisis; an iron curtain drawn along the coastline of the southern edge of Malaysia's rural Johor state, 50 miles east of Singapore harbour.It is so far off the beaten track that nobody ever really comes close, which is why these ships are here. The world's ship owners and government economists would prefer you not to see this symbol of the depths of the plague still crippling the world's economies.
So they have been quietly retired to this equatorial backwater, to be maintained only by a handful of bored sailors. The skeleton crews are left alone to fend off the ever-present threats of piracy and collisions in the congested waters as the hulls gather rust and seaweed at what should be their busiest time of year.
Amazing how efficient unfettered global capitalism is, huh? Here's a picture of some of the ships:
As I see it, the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth. Until the Great Depression, most economists clung to a vision of capitalism as a perfect or nearly perfect system. That vision wasn’t sustainable in the face of mass unemployment, but as memories of the Depression faded, economists fell back in love with the old, idealized vision of an economy in which rational individuals interact in perfect markets, this time gussied up with fancy equations. The renewed romance with the idealized market was, to be sure, partly a response to shifting political winds, partly a response to financial incentives. But while sabbaticals at the Hoover Institution and job opportunities on Wall Street are nothing to sneeze at, the central cause of the profession’s failure was the desire for an all-encompassing, intellectually elegant approach that also gave economists a chance to show off their mathematical prowess.It's wort reading the whole thing. We may be on the verge of a double-dip.
Unfortunately, this romanticized and sanitized vision of the economy led most economists to ignore all the things that can go wrong. They turned a blind eye to the limitations of human rationality that often lead to bubbles and busts; to the problems of institutions that run amok; to the imperfections of markets — especially financial markets — that can cause the economy’s operating system to undergo sudden, unpredictable crashes; and to the dangers created when regulators don’t believe in regulation.
I find it telling that Republicans have been reduced to betting on a terror attack and pushing for revolution or secession. These guys have some fucked up "wishful thinking."Our guess, however, is that Cheney overstates when he says "so many Americans have doubts." We'd venture that for most people the Obama administration's see-no-evil approach is comforting. After years of fear and vigilance, it's nice to be able to relax and not worry so much about terrorism.
It's nice--but potentially dangerous. If the Bush administration's policies really did keep us safe for 7½ years, then it stands to reason that the Obama administrations' policies may be endangering us now. Certainly that is how the public would see it in the event of another terrorist attack.
If that happens, heaven forbid, Obama will be seen to have failed in the most basic presidential duty, and the Bush administration will be vindicated. As inconceivable as it may seem today, the 2012 election may end up turning on national security. Republicans would be wise to nominate someone with both toughness and experience. Under such circumstances, it's hard to think of a better candidate--assuming, of course, that he could be persuaded to run--than Richard B. Cheney.
Responding to criticism from former Vice President Cheney that President Obama is making the nation more vulnerable to terrorism, the president’s National Security Adviser, Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.), told ABC News in an exclusive interview that actually the reverse is true: President Obama’s greater success with international relations has meant more terrorists put out of commission.“This type of radical fundamentalism or terrorism is a threat not only to the United States but to the global community,” Jones said. “The world is coming together on this matter now that President Obama has taken the leadership on it and is approaching it in a slightly different way – actually a radically different way – to discuss things with other rulers to enhance the working relationships with law enforcement agencies – both national and international."
Jones said that “we are seeing results that indicate more captures, more deaths of radical leaders and a kind of a global coming-together by the fact that this is a threat to not only the United States but to the world at-large and the world is moving toward doing something about it.”
With or without a new terror attack, it's the current administration that is bringing more real security to the world--not just the appearance of security that comes with a heavy hand.
It certainly sounds scary enough to make you want to go show up at a town hall meeting and yell about how misguided President Obama's healthcare reform plans are. Except that's not the future of healthcare -- it's the present. Long before anyone started talking about government "death panels" or warning that Obama would have the government ration care, 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, a leukemia patient from Glendale, Calif., died in December 2007, after her parents battled their insurance company, Cigna, over the surgery. Cigna initially refused to pay for it because the company's analysis showed Sarkisyan was already too sick from her leukemia; the liver transplant wouldn't have saved her life.That kind of utilitarian rationing, of course, is exactly what Palin and other opponents of the healthcare reform proposals pending before Congress say they want to protect the country from. "Such a system is downright evil," Palin wrote, in the same message posted on Facebook where she raised the "death panel" specter. "Health care by definition involves life and death decisions."
Note: If you have more, add them to the comments and I'll fold them in.
You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.As I mentioned yesterday, the difference between reform and the current system is ethics.
If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is.
So don’t talk to me about “death panels” you heartless, cruel, greedy sons of bitches, who are only too happy to keep the profits rolling in to the big insurance companies while you spout your mealy-mouthed bumper sticker slogans about the evils of socialism. You don't even know what socialism is. You don't know what government healthcare is. You have no fucking clue about anything except that you lost the last election and you're pissed off.
These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.Health care is complex. It touches every American life. It drives our economy. People must be allowed to learn the facts.
Certainly, no Democrat is proposing a "death panel," or withholding care to the young or infirm. To say such a thing would be political suicide.So far so good. But he also says:
These critics, however, didn't take the time to find out to what Palin was referring when she used the term "level of productivity in society" as being the basis for determining access to medical care. If the critics, who hold themselves in the highest of intellectual esteem, had bothered to do something other than react, they would have realized that the approach to health care to which Palin was referring was none other than that espoused by key Obama health care adviser Dr. Ezekial Emanuel (brother of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel).I'm not qualified for the requisite discursive ass-kicking, so take it away Dr. Pollack:
The article in which Dr. Emanuel puts forth his approach is "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions," published on January 31, 2009. A full copy is embedded below. Read it, particularly the section beginning at page 6 of the embed (page 428 in the original) at which Dr. Emanuel sets forth the principles of "The Complete Lives System."
Palin and Bachmann take pot shots at Ezekiel Emanuel, one of President Obama’s health policy advisors. Dr. Emanuel, a prominent medical ethicist and oncologist, makes a juicy target because he is Rahm’s brother, and because his paper trail provides incautiously blunt commentary regarding the pathologies of American health policy. It’s easy to lift one or two sentences from him, throw them onto the internet, and set the right-wing blogosphere aflame.In fairness, Jacobson does post an entire document. That said, the bluntness of the Emanuels is well known--and this is substance of Jacobson's claim, not anything related to a health care policy actually being considered. Rationing already exists. It's just that right now it's the insurance industry that does it. What Dr Emanuel argues is that we apply some (gasp) ethics to the process.
While Emanuel does not use the term "death panel," Palin put that term in quotation marks to signify the concept of medical decisions based on the perceived societal worth of an individual, not literally a "death panel."No. Typically when double quotes are used to make reference to documents or speeches, they imply that those are the actual words lifted from the text. That is what most reasonable readers will infer--and only a bad writer would be unaware of this convention.
During the past week, I’ve had conversations with old friends – leftist, centrist, and conservative – with whom I experienced the political battles of the 1960’s. All of us have a similar take on what’s happening now, compared to then. Then, it was a challenge against authority primarily by the privileged young who didn’t want to serve in the war, which dissipated rapidly once the draft ended, while their ideologues took refuge in academia to rise to insulated tenure of attachment to their old slogans and some of their ilk to gerrymandered seniority in Congress. ... Now, it is the broader swath of working and middle class Americans, a far larger and more potent population, who are fed up and angry with being exploited and insulted by those who feel it their right and duty to impose their schemes to rearrange and endanger everyone else’s lives and weaken the America that sustains us. We all feel the potential for violence is high. Enough everyday Americans will defend themselves against thuggish attacks upon their right to speak out.Yeah, but in both cases it was the boundless self-obsession of your useless narcissistic generation on display---preening and parading and telling the rest of us how great you are.
As a substantive matter, this might be the stupidest thing ever written about health care policy. Just two weeks after she implored journalists to "quit making things up," Palin has manufactured the idea of a "death panel" out of thin air. As Time's Karen Tumulty noted, "Yes, such a system would indeed be downright evil. Which is why no one is proposing anything like it. Let's repeat: No one is proposing anything like it."What's more, if we're going to take Palin's truly insane babblings seriously as a policy pronouncement, it's also worth noting that the former governor points to one relevant angle. As publius noted, "[T]here are people who weigh whether children like Trig are worthy of insurance. They're called insurance companies, and they have decided that these children are not in fact worthy of coverage. That's because Down Syndrome is a 'pre-existing condition.'"
But in the larger political context, a statement like this positions Palin as something of a disgrace. After insisting that her family be left out of political debate, here's Palin dragging her special-needs infant son into the discussion, in order to spread an obvious lie. What's more, for Palin to write such a statement for public review makes clear that she's either conspicuously unintelligent or she thinks her followers are idiots. Either she believes her own vile nonsense or she assumes her audience is foolish enough to believe patently ridiculous attacks.
Either way, Sarah Palin is a national embarrassment, and she's getting worse.
Trig may have Down Syndrome, but Sarah's the one that's obviously retarded. (Before you write me angry letters, know that I would only apply this label to those that earn it, not those that inherit it.)
Zandar does a much better job than I in keeping the commentary both cogent and "PC" [emphasis in original]:
But to see you denigrate those so less fortunate by using your own child as a political talking point to suggest such a brutally barbaric and horrific lie is about the most repugnant, sickening, infuriating thing I have ever seen, madam.
Know then, that there are people out there who have proven government-provided health care services work. They provide such care every day. You demean them and their service to the people through such a hideous act. You demean they people they work hard to help, some of who have Down's Syndrome, like your son. You demean yourself as well.
You owe my father and everyone he has helped in his over 35 years as a developmental psychologist a heartfelt and sincere apology, madam. And you should look inside your own heart and ask yourself what kind of world you would like Trig Palin to grow up in...hopefully one without such rancorous falsehoods.
He deserves more, and so does this country.
So now, these people are facing their worst fears; actual change.Exactly ... but don't forget the sweat we've paid.
A political and demographic re-alignment is happening before their eyes, and they are reaching back into their old bag of tricks of intimidation, violence, and apocalyptic fearmongering. You are British, Andrew. You love this country, and we love you for it. But you didn't grow up around these folks, and you don't realize what a permanent and potent part of the American political landscape they are.
They have always been with us, the people who believed in manifest destiny, who delighted in the slaughter of this land's original inhabitants, who cheered a nation into a civil war to support an economic system of slavery that didn't even benefit them. They are the people who bashed the unions and cheered on the anti-sedition laws, who joined the Pinkertons and the No Nothing Party, who beat up Catholic immigrants and occasionally torched the black part of town. They rode through the Southern pine forests at night, they banned non-European immigration, they burned John Rockefeller Jr. in effigy for proposing the Grand Tetons National Park.
These are the folks who drove Teddy Roosevelt out of the Republican Party and called his cousin Franklin a communist, shut their town's borders to the Okies and played the protectionist card right up til Pearl Harbor, when they suddenly had a new foreign enemy to hate. They are with us, the John Birchers, the anti-flouride and black helicopter nuts, the squirrly commie-hating hysterics who always loved the loyalty oath, the forced confession, the auto-de-fe. Those who await with baited breath the race war, the nuclear holocaust, the cultural jihad, the second coming, they make up much more of America then you would care to think.
I'm always optimistic about America. We're a naturally rich and beautiful place. Every generation we renew ourselves with a watering of immigrants committed to the American dream, immigrants like you. But please, Andrew, do not for a second underestimate the price in blood and tears we've always paid here for progress.
The answer, I suspect, is that to actually create some momentum for health care reform, there needs to be a concerted push launched by the American majority that's been waiting for reform for decades. It's not enough to simply let right-wing mobs destroy whatever remaining shreds of credibility the conservative movement had left. It's necessary for reform advocates to be vocal and public, letting the media and policymakers know there's a genuine hunger to pass, at long last, meaningful reform.
Now, this obviously doesn't mean having reform supporters act like far-right lunatics, shouting down Republican lawmakers, shutting down public events, and threatening physical violence. But Collins assumes rallying proponents is a "bad plan" because it means "confronting the crazies" and taking the focus off of mobs the American mainstream should find repulsive.
But that doesn't seem like the best way to win a policy debate. Many have tried sitting back, passively waiting for crazed activists to discredit themselves in the eyes of the political establishment. The more successful efforts have gotten in the proverbial game, rather than waiting on the sidelines. The silent tend to go unheard.
I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket
....
And I haven't even brought up America's religious beliefs. But here's one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.
There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands.It sure wouldn't.Now, people who don’t know that Medicare is a government program probably aren’t reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they’re probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they’ve heard about what he’s doing, than to who he is.
That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don’t know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s a substantial fraction.
But the vicious anger from the far right, which is to say what is currently the right, seems totally out of proportion to these reforms. Where does that come from? It comes from the same place as the tea-party protests. It's partisan, of course - most Republicans, including Glenn Reynolds, ignored the deficit under Bush, blamed Obama for it within minutes of his election, and never refer to the impact of the recession on deficits. But it is also surely cultural - an expression of the rage some in white America feel at the new social make-up of their country. I just sat through a PJTV segment on Sarah Palin, in which the host blithely referred to the heartland as "real America."If that is what you really believe - that people in cities or suburbs, that minorities, that gays, that blacks and Hispanics are not part of "real America" - then of course, you are angry. You believe a fake America has taken over. You cannot understand this. So you start believing that we have a fascist/communist dictatorship, that there was some fraud allowing a non-citizen to become president, that the government is about to "take over" all healthcare provision ... and on and on. And no one is left in the GOP to challenge this, to calm it down, to present practical alternatives to the obvious crushing problems the country and the private sector have in paying for increasingly costly healthcare.
To me, this is a triumph of ideology. And conservatism is now an abstract anti-government ideology, fueled by cultural, racial and sexual resentment. This is a recipe for more violence, and more marginalization.
And in his WaPo column today, Steven Pearlstein lays the confusion at the feet of GOP leaders, proving that they are not interested in actual political discourse.
The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress -- I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.
...
The Republican lies about the economics of health reform are also heavily laced with hypocrisy.
While holding themselves out as paragons of fiscal rectitude, Republicans grandstand against just about every idea to reduce the amount of health care people consume or the prices paid to health-care providers -- the only two ways I can think of to credibly bring health spending under control.
...
Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.
If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.
Indeed.
Update 2: Of course, no debate would be complete without a healthy dose of right-leaning smart-ass douche-baggery ... littered with inside jokes, bad writing, intentional misrepresentation and stilted "irony".
As many of you have heard, the White House now requests that the public tattle on those of us spreading "fishy disinformation" regarding Washington's proposed takeover . . . oops, I mean "reform" . . . of your health care. This step, naturally, is for our own good.
As many of you may have noticed, my own standards for discourse have fallen when dealing with these asshats. Sorry ... but the gloves are off. I will, of course, continue to treat serious political discourse with the seriousness that it deserves. But you, Mr Harsanyi, are a fuktard. Shame on the Denver Post for publishing this crap.
Update 3: Josh Marshall over at TPM seems to agree with my own assessment (even if he does show more patience in his tone that I).
We had a number of emails last night discussing how much of what we're hearing from the right now should be considered incitement. There are numerous instances of anti-reform advocates explicitly comparing President Obama's health care plan to the Holocaust, for instance -- jumping from the hideous and outrageous claim that reform means euthanasia and going from there. We get desensitized to this stuff. But it's worth taking a moment to give that a long think -- comparing the president's reform plan to the Holocaust.
Most significant here is not the right-wing liars and demagogues making this stuff up but the fact that they've convinced a significant number of their followers that this stuff is true. That's a very dangerous situation.
We should also keep in mind that the birther-mania, as comical as it is on one level, is all part of the same fabric with the Hitler and Holocaust comparisons, an aggressive process of denigration and dehumanization, dressed up around claims about paperwork and places of birth, but all escalating and churning the belief of a minority of Americans that President Obama is not a legitimate president but rather a usurper.
(Please visit the site and donate to the artist, if you think work like this is important. I've reprinted these photos here as "Fair Use" with the intention of giving the reader a sense of the work and promoting the artist and copyright holder: James D. Griffioen.)
There are TWO reasons why the “birther” movement is EXPLODING instead of going away, despite daily attacks and name calling from the lamestream press.
- The Constitution, including Article II -Section I either stands or it doesn’t.
- The people are watching the utter hourly destruction of their nation in Washington DC and they need a peaceful way to end that destruction legally, before things become violent.
The flaw in the left’s plan to change the Unites States into a secular socialist One World Order is they have foolishly underestimated the desire for freedom and liberty in the hearts and minds of most Americans.
I've written about this sentiment and it's dangers ad nauseum. Remember these guys?
They're the same racist asshats. Read a book!
From December 12, 1963 until December 12, 1964, the official title of Kenya was the Dominion of Kenya. It wasn’t until a year later, on December 12, 1964 that the Republic of Kenya came into existence. And yet, the document above, issued on February 17, 1964 purports to have been issued on behalf of the Office of Principal Registrar, Coast Province, Republic of Kenya.
Lest I be accused of "promoting hatred" once more, I'll leave the naked ridicule to a conservative site:
LGF reader Shiplord Kirel has granted us exclusive permission to reveal his world-shattering scoop! He’s discovered the honest-to-goodness, no BS, real, true, and genuine nirth certifikit for Barack Obama ... and the conspiracy goes much deeper than even the most whacked out Nirther ever realized...
“Mr. Cantor [...] finds it ironic that those most eager to talk about the President’s citizenship are in fact some of his biggest cheerleaders–whether it’s Chris Matthews or others on MSNBC, the Huffington Post, or camera toting liberal bloggers chasing people through the streets of Washington.”
Of course one need only look at the recent Kos/Research2000 poll to figure out that this is complete bull. A search of my posts on "Right Wing Extremism", "30 Years in the Wilderness" and (perhaps most cogently) "Inciting to Riot" would provide additional texture on this story.
Interestingly, there is a component to the Kos poll that has not been widely reported:
QUESTION: Do you believe that America and Africa were once part of the same continent?YES/NO/NOT SURE
ALL 42/26/32
DEM 51/16/33
REP 24/47/29
SOUTH 32/37/31
WHITE 35/30/35
BLACK 63/13/24
LATINO 55/19/26
For space, I've truncated the numbers to the interesting ones. Notice that, the problem really is REPUBLICANS ... not Whites or Southerners, per se (although their performance is still embarrassing). Also interesting is that only three demographics got this right: Blacks, Latinos and Democrats.
But forget all that. For proof that this is not a concoction of the Socialist Liberal Media Conspiracy, one merely need look at the latest nonsense on the birther hotspot Free Republic, where they've posted a "copy" of "Obama's Kenyan Birth Certificate." (Isn't that what got Dan Rather fired?) Read the comments ... These people are friggen nuts! (Good thing they aren't obsessed with guns or anything like that.)
I leave the closing argument to Bill Maher:
And once these stories get out there, they're hard to stamp out because our media do such a lousy job of speaking truth to stupid. Vietnam, Iraq and the Spanish-American War were all sold on lies that were unchallenged or even abetted by the media. Clinton got impeached and Kerry got destroyed in large part because the media didn't have the guts to say, "This is nonsense."Update: I received the following rebuttal by email (which I've republished in full, but ommitted the name and address provided, since I have neither sought nor obtained consent).
Lou Dobbs has been saying recently that people are asking a lot of questions about the birth certificate. Yes, the same people who want to know where the sun goes at night.
...
That's why it's so important that we the few, the proud, the reality-based attack this stuff before it has a chance to fester and spread. This isn't a case of Democrats versus Republicans. It's sentient beings versus the lizard people, and it is to them I offer this deal: I'll show you Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma.
Why is it that convservatives are so fond of using 2 dollar words to express 2 cent thoughts? (I know where I'd rather invest the money.)The burden of proof does not rest upon those who doubt the claimant. The burden of proof rests solely upon the claimant. Mr. Obama has said, "I am qualified to be president." Forty million American citizens have said, "Prove it." Mr. Obama and his supporters have said in reply, "Prove that I'm not!"
Mr. Obama, et al, have offered a simple and obvious Burden of Proof Fallacy in support of their claims and then followed it up with Appeals to Ridicule, to Popularity, to Authority and to False Dilemma/False Choice. ("Believe me or else you're a nutjob!") In view of the lack of presentation of an original document, there can only be one rational conclusion: An original document does not exist, or if it does actually exists, it contains information that disproves the assertions made by Mr. Obama, the claimant.
At the moment, there is more proof for the existence of UFO's, remote viewing and psychic phenomena than there is for an original document of Obama's birth certificate. 'I saw it! It really, really exists!" or "John Doe has a picture of a certifed copy stating that it exists, so it must be true!" is not an original document.
In view of the objective evidence, it is a very sane and rational question to ask.
Where is the - original - birth certificate?
Please note: You are now openly promoting intolerance (hatred) against approximately 40 million American adults of every race and religion who simply disagree with you.
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refer:
http://www.westernjournalism.com/?page_id=2697
Clearing the Smoke on Obama’s Eligibility: An Intelligence Investigator’s June 10 Report
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Natural Born Citizen defined same way seven times:
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200804/041008c.html
Senators Introduce Resolution To Make Clear Senate's Position On Candidate's status. WASHINGTON (Thursday, April 10, 2008)
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refer also:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/13295
Why the Founding Fathers Were “Birthers” - by JB Williams.
31 July, 2009
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Update 3: Following up on the second link provided in the above rebuttal, we find the following nugget from Bush DHS Secretary Chertoff (reflecting my own intuitions) about the meaning of "natural-born citizen":We asked for and received a copy from the Obama campaign. It is too large to display full size on this page, but you may click on this link to see a copy of the document just as we received it.
It indicates Obama was born at 7:24 p.m. Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu. That should be no surprise, as it merely documents what Obama and his biographers have always said. But the document should put to rest groundless speculation raised on some conservative Web sites that Obama might not have been born in the U.S. and therefore might not qualify under the Constitution as a "natural-born citizen" to be president.
So then, why all the drama? Even if he was born in Kenya (and any objective analysis indicates that he was NOT), he's eligible to be President. Just like John McCain and Mitt Romney.Chairman Leahy: We will come back to that. I would mention one other thing, if I might, Senator Specter. Let me just ask this: I believe--and we have had some question in this Committee to have a special law passed declaring that Senator McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal, that he meets the constitutional requirement to be President. I fully believe he does. I have never had any question in my mind that he meets our constitutional requirement. You are a former Federal judge. You are the head of the agency that executes Federal immigration law. Do you have any doubt in your mind--I mean, I have none in mine. Do you have any doubt in your mind that he is constitutionally eligible to become President?
Secretary Chertoff: My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen.
Chairman Leahy: That is mine, too. Thank you.
In short, the argument is that Obama must have been born somewhere other than Hawaii, because if he had been born there, his "original birth certificate" would have indicated this, and therefore not be a political liability for him to release. It's basically an analogue to the "why worry if you're not breaking the law?" argument we often see from the anti-ACLU types when promoting increased police powers.Sections 57-8, 9, 18, 19, 20 & 40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act explain why Barack Obama has refused to release the original vault birth certificate. If the original certificate were the standard BC1 type of birth certificate, he would have allowed its release and brought the controversy to a quick end. But if the original certificate is of the other kinds, then Obama would have a very good reason not to release the vault birth certificate. For if he did, then the tape recording of Obama’s Kenyan grandmother asserting that she was present at his birth in Kenya becomes far more important. As does the Kenyan ambassador’s assertion that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, as well as the sealing of all government and hospital records relevant to Obama by the Kenyan government. And the fact that though there are many witnesses to Ann Dunham’s presence on Oahu from Sept 1960 to Feb 1961, there are no witnesses to her being on Oahu from March 1961 to August 1962 when she returned from Seattle and the University of Washington. No Hawaiian physicians, nurses, or midwives have come forward with any recollection of Barack Obama’s birth.
The fact that Obama refuses to release the vault birth certificate that would instantly clear up this matter almost certainly indicates that the vault birth certificate is probably a BC2 or possibly a BC3.
The burden of proof does not rest upon those who doubt the claimant. The burden of proof rests solely upon the claimant. Mr. Obama has said, "I am qualified to be president." Forty million American citizens have said, "Prove it." Mr. Obama and his supporters have said in reply, "Prove that I'm not!"Hmmm. In this case the claimant appears to be the coalition claiming that he is NOT a natural-born citizen. Obama has provided documentation sufficient to answer the question at hand. The standards for "Burden of Proof" vary from venue to venue, but all documentation points to the fact that President Barack Hussein Obama was born either: 1) within the territorial United States; or 2) to an American citizen. So Barack Obama has fully satisfied his burden of proof. Repeated rulings in actual courts of law have made equivalent claims.
The religious right isn't what's wrong with the GOP. It's the pervasive, unthinking, unreflective nationalism. It's the arrogance of thrice-divorced adulterers reaching for the banner of traditional families, and it's the arrogance of men who prosecuted a poorly planned war, on weak intelligence, presuming to lecture us on national security.Wow! So True.
"I was going towards Baharestan with my friend. This was everyone, not just supporters of one candidate or another. All of my friends, they were going to Baharestan to express our opposition to these killings and demanding freedom. The black-clad police stopped everyone. They emptied the buses that were taking people there and let the private cars go on. We went on until Ferdowsi then all of a sudden some 500 people with clubs came out of [undecipherable] mosque and they started beating everyone. They tried to beat everyone on [undecipherable] bridge and throwing them off of the bridge. And everyone also on the sidewalks. They beat a woman so savagely that she was drenched in blood and her husband, he fainted. They were beating people like hell. It was a massacre. They were trying to beat people so they would die. they were cursing and saying very bad words to everyone. This was exactly a massacre... I don't know how to describe it."If only that were the worst of it:
they pull away the dead into trucks - like factory - no human can do this - we beg Allah for save us -
Lalezar Sq is same as Baharestan - unbelevable - ppls murdered everywhere
they catch ppl with mobile - so many killed today - so many injured - Allah Akbar - they take one of us
in Baharestan we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher - Allah Akbar
I just talked to my brother in Tehran. It's awful.Update: It's every bit as bad as we thought:
He couldn't go to Baharestan himself, but was very worried for his friends who had gone. Also, he was saying that the state-run TV is broadcasting pictures of people who have been participating in the protests and asking viewers to give information on them. They have also apparently taken pictures in the demonstrations, matched them with the national ID card database and are now rounding people up in the dead of night.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Men are bearing the brunt of the current economic crisis because they predominate in manufacturing and construction, the hardest-hit sectors, which have lost more than 3 million jobs since December 2007. Women, by contrast, are a majority in recession-resistant fields such as education and health care, which gained 588,000 jobs during the same period. Rescuing hundreds of thousands of unemployed crane operators, welders, production line managers, and machine setters was never going to be easy.So men should learn to be teachers and nurses, right? Of course not ... we should blame feminists!
Although it is not yet clear who shot "Neda" (a soldier? pro-government militant? an accidental misfiring?), her death may have changed everything. For the cycles of mourning in Shiite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat — a way to generate or revive momentum. Shiite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles.Meanwhile, scattered unconfirmed reporting (aggregated by Sullivan) puts Rafsanjani at the center of an emerging faction on the Gaurdian Council:
It seems that in a quick poll of the Guardian Counsel by two of their own (Ahmad Khatami and Mohammad Yazdi) some of the members of Qom's rank and file have refused to recognize Ahmadinejad's victory in the elections, which itself is giving rise to speculation that up to 40 members of the Guardian Counsel and authoirties of the Khobregan [I don't know how that has been translated in English] have signed a letter demanding a nullification of the last election results. Rafsanjani is said to have that letter in his possession.Al Arabiyah reports that they may be planning to replace Khamenei with some kind of "collective leadership":
On the other hand, it is said that Ali Khamenei has been relocated from his residence either for security reasons or for treatment. It has even been said that the reason that Rafsanjani's daughter 'Faezeh' was arrested from amongst the demonstrators was to pressure Rafsanjani due to the behind the scenes role that he has been playing.
It is being said that the reason for the coup d'etat is Khamenei's growing health problems and the severity of his lung cancer. His son Mojtaba wanted to keep the role of Supreme Leader in the family and needed the presidential power to be sympathetic and close to home on the issue.
It is said that the experience of the House of Ayatollah Khomeini and specifically, Ahmad Khomeini's experience, had a big role in shaping recent events. They were determined to select the next Supreme Leader prior to the death of Khamenei. This is based on a line in Mousavi's letter to the Supreme Leader saying that the recent events would not only impact the presidency but the foundation of Leadership in the future--changing the Islamic Republic to a monarchy or an Islamic Monarchy.
In another report three other well recognized ayatollahs (Javadi Ameli, Amini and Ostadi) boycotted last week's Friday prayers because supporters of Mesbah Yazdi had come to Qom attending the prayers and were protesting the Counsel.
The three mentioned above have withheld recognition of Ahmadinejad's victory, and have demanded justice for the people who have been attacked in recent events. Ameli went so far as saying about the attacks on the University streets that, "No Muslim would attack the homes and lives of other Muslims; anyone doing so is an outsider (non-Muslim)."
Religious leaders are considering an alternative to the supreme leader structure after at least 13 people were killed in the latest unrest to shake Tehran and family members of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, were arrested amid calls by former President Mohammad Khatami for the release of all protesters.
Iran's religious clerics in Qom and members of the Assembly of Experts, headed by Ayatollah Rafsanjani, are mulling the formation of an alternative collective leadership to replace that of the supreme leader, sources in Qom told Al Arabiya on condition of anonymity.
The events of the past week in Iran, following the June 12 presidential election there, have been remarkable and hopeful. It's been a moment when one would like a president of the United States--who has, in such moments, a supporting but not an inconsequential role--to rise to the occasion. Barack Obama hasn't. We are therefore put in the position of hoping that the words of an American president are being mostly ignored, that his weakness won't matter, and that the forces of reform or revolution will be able to prevail--as they may--with the support of many in America, if not the president.
That having been said, it's pretty wonderful to see what we're seeing. It is moving, stirring—they are risking their lives over there in a spontaneous, self-generated movement for greater liberty and justice. Good for them. In a selfish and solipsistic way—more on that in a moment—the uprising, as it moves us, reminds us of who we are: lovers of political freedom who are always and irresistibly on the side of the student standing in front of the tank or the demonstrator chanting "Where is my vote?" in the face of the billy club. Good for us.
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To refuse to see all this as progress, or potential progress, is perverse to the point of wicked. To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous. The ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as mindless lackeys of the Great Satan Cowboy Uncle Sam, or whatever they call us this week. John McCain and others went quite crazy insisting President Obama declare whose side America was on, as if the world doesn't know whose side America is on. "In the cause of freedom, America cannot be neutral," said Rep. Mike Pence. Who says it's neutral?
This was Aggressive Political Solipsism at work: Always exploit events to show you love freedom more than the other guy, always make someone else's delicate drama your excuse for a thumping curtain speech.
“I welcome death
I welcome death
But not subjugation
But not subjugation”
“I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…” - an Iranian blogger, with more courage than most of us will ever know.Via Sullivan.
The support of the US government for the Hungarian uprising in 1956 “could have made a difference” only if the US were prepared to invade Hungary and go to war with the USSR. The US would quickly have lost such a confrontation to the overwhelming Soviet superiority in conventional forces in Europe, and would have risked seeing Soviet tanks roll into Western Europe as well. The US would then have been faced with the decision of whether to launch a nuclear war. President Eisenhower made the correct — the only possible — decision, in declining to intervene in Hungary.
The error in 1956 was on the part of Radio Free Europe, in holding out to Hungarian resisters the false hope that the West would or could intervene on their behalf. It would be similarly cruel and immoral to give Iranian demonstrators the false idea that we in the democratic world can offer them anything more than our sympathy. We can’t. We will not invade Iran, and nothing else we do will have much of an effect on the behavior of a regime fighting to retain its hold on power. The demonstrators in Iran must know that they have to win the struggle for a fair election on their own, and must be prepared to face the consequences of failure. And they do know this. That is precisely what makes them so courageous. It would be stupid and irresponsible of the US to use their struggle as an occasion for ineffectual rhetorical grandstanding, and fortunately President Obama, unlike our last President, seems able to resist the temptation.
But here's my answer: this is the central event in modern history right now. The forces of democracy have marshalled in Iran for accountability, transparency and fairness. Wherever they marshall, we should stand with them, especially in the blogosphere, where our Iranian brothers and sisters built the foundation for this moment.
Moreover, Iran is at the very heart of the global struggle between the forces of distorted and politicized religious tyranny and the power of real faith and freedom. This struggle was never ours' to impose, however good the intentions. It was always there for the people themselves to grasp. And grasp it they now have - with astounding courage, clarity and calm.
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This is hopeful enough. But the use of technology to achieve this offers a whole new paradigm for world politics. We saw its power in the Obama campaign, which harnessed a similar spirit in utterly different circumstances. Now it's transofrming the other side of this previously unstoppable conflict.
we told everybody to get out and leave dorms. but most of the student got no where to go & no relatives in Tehran.
it looks they are going to attack dorms again! IRG's chopper just passed by Yousefabad. there is noting left to destroy over there!
a state TV employee: Gun shooting sound is heard near Jaame jam building
confirmed by farsi twitters: around 2000 basiji is now standing in front of dorms.
Mousavi supporters are having "Calmness will beat the bullets" placards and standing near TV/Radio station's mosque.
NEWS: Mousavi supporters moving towards IRIB News Network HQ. 8 ppl confirmed killed
more than 150,000 people are demostrating to Tajrish Sq.Basiji forces are ready to attack / in Tehran
they are searching for Dr Yazdi , a political activist
Basij are wearing civilian clothing. Do not mix them up with protestors!!
Police is going to houses and seizing satellite receivers.
1. Remove Khamenei from supreme leader because he doesn't qualify as a fair supreme leader
2. Remove Ahmadinejad from president because he took it forcefully and unlawfully
3. Put Ayatollah Montazeri as supreme leader until a review group for the ghanooneh asasi ( "constitution" ) is set up
4. Recognize Mousavi as the official president
5. A goverment by Mousavi and start a reform of the constitution
6. Free all political prisoners without any ifs ands or buts, right away
7. Call off any secret organization such as "gasht ershad"
Shots have been fired at an opposition rally in Tehran where more than 100,000 Iranians were protesting against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
An Associated Press photographer saw one person killed when shots were fired from a compound for pro-government militiamen. Several other people appeared to have been seriously wounded in Tehran's Azadi Square. BBC's Persian service quoted an eyewitness saying that four protesters have been killed.
A reporter on Iran's English-language Press TV said: "There has been sporadic shooting out there ... I can see people running here."
Iran's reformist presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has called off a major rally to protest last Friday's election results, amid claims police had been cleared to open fire on protesters.
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Mr Mousavi's cancellation of the protest came as sporadic disturbances continued around the Iranian capital, and reports circulated of leaked interior ministry statistics showing him as the clear victor in last Friday's polls.
The statistics, circulated on Iranian blogs and websites, claimed Mr Mousavi had won 19.1 million votes while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won only 5.7 million.
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Overnight, squads of police and their allies in Iran's basiji gangs, a plain clothes militia made up of civilian hardliners, stormed the campus at the city's biggest university, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students.
http://tehranlive.org/
http://www.memeorandum.com/
http://tehranbureau.com/
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/
http://www.michaeltotten.com/
http://twitter.com/IranElection09
