Well, Philip Berg ends up on the front page - and not in a very good way. The Fantasy Tiddlywinks league submits 181 of the usual birther tripe to try and convince the courts to start a REAL grand jury, and openly delights in being "one-sided". Rep Trent Franks doesn't know if he's on or off the bus to birtherstan. And Dr. Orly comes back from her vacation overseas and proceeds to fall straight into bugshit paranoid land.
(Note - "Yes To Democracy" is still having domain issues. I plan to crosspost back there when they are resolved. "Bad Fiction" remains the primary home for my birther updates.)
18 August - Philip Berg ends up in a front-page article in the "Philadelphia Weekly"
“I believe Obama is setting himself up to be blackmailed by other countries, and that may explain the reason he has relaxed travel restrictions on Cuba—because they are blackmailing him,” said Berg before the hair-raising breeze returned and the tentacles were back.
Welcome to the bizarro nation, where everything we hold true is in fact a lie, magical thinking trumps scientific analysis, hysterical partisan operatics drown out the low hum of objective connect-the-facts narrative, and a recent survey indicates that nearly 60 percent of registered Republicans openly question whether or not the President of the United States is a natural born citizen. The one prominent Republican naysayer is, shockingly enough, Anne Coulter who publicly called people who question the president’s citizenship “cranks.” Truly, when Ann Coulter is the voice of reason, we are through the looking glass, people.
Almost exactly one year ago, just days before Barack Obama received his party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Berg made headlines when he filed a lawsuit alleging that the candidate was not a natural born citizen of the United States and therefore not qualified to hold the office of president. In the time since Berg first filed suit, people who openly question President Obama’s place of birth have been dubbed “Birthers” by the media—a play on the nickname the media afforded believers in the so-called 9/11 Truth movement, aka Truthers. Because Berg has the dubious distinction of filing the first legal salvo in The Battle For Obama’s Birth Certificate, he is in essence the Alpha Birther, a status he both relishes and cultivates.
When the right wing fringes of the Internet began buzzing with questions of Obama’s eligibility early last summer, the Obama campaign posted a lo-res JPEG of his Certification Of Live Birth (COLB), the short form proof of birth currently used by the state of Hawaii. The poor quality of the JPEG provided an opening for self-styled forensic experts— emboldened by their triumphant debunking of the documents used for Dan Rather’s 2004 ill-fated 60 Minutes broadcast questioning George W. Bush’s National Guard service—to question the authenticity of Obama’s COLB. FactCheck.org, a respected non-partisan online outfit that truth squads various political claims, was able to examine Obama’s COLB and vouched for its authenticity (and posted a hi-res version of it online), as have Hawaiian state officials.
Still, the Birthers insist, the COLB is short on details such as the presiding physician and the name of the hospital where Obama was born. Those records are sealed, as per the federal Health Information Privacy Act of 1999 and Hawaiian state law, and will remain that way unless Obama greenlights their release, which to date he has not.
The Birthers take this as proof Obama is hiding something, while most others just assume he has more pressing concerns: two wars, a cratering economy and a health care reform effort that has triggered a right wing jihad."
And Berg is pretty up front about what he wants to see:
“I would like to see him removed from office, thrown in jail and then deported,” says Berg when asked what would happen if he were able to prove in a court of law that Obama is not a natural born citizen of the United States. "
Still upset that "Dear Hillary" didn't win, eh Berg?? And what is his opinion of Dr. Orly, who the article calls both the "Acid Queen of the Birthers" and the "She Wolf of the Birthers"??
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she was put up to this by the Obama people to make us all look foolish,” says Berg. Liberi wonders aloud if she is working for German or Russian intelligence, noting that Taitz’s blog gets flagged by most web browsers as an “attack site.”
“I’ve been told that it installs malware on your computer and sends all your files to Russia,” says Liberi."
As for Berg, hope springs eternal:
“I believe we can get him to resign by the end of the year, even if the legal process takes longer.”
Well, your letter last March didn't get him to drop out. Your first lawsuit didn't force the DNC to select the "more electable" Hillary Clinton, did it? You don't have a good track record at prediction, do you??
It ends with:
"...don’t expect Berg or the Birther movement to go away any time soon. Not even if Obama were to release his complete birth records, as the Birthers and, as of late, even some on the left, including The Atlantic ’s Andrew Sullivan, have demanded.
“Paranoia is the most political of mental illnesses in that it requires enemies,” says Dr. Jerrold Post, Director of the Political Psychology Program at George Washington University and the author of 11 books, including Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred .
“The paranoid’s position is that it is better to be the center of a plot against you than to be totally ignored and insignificant. A sense of powerlessness leads to compensatory delusions of grandiosity which sends people into a blind pursuit of confirming data. It is very hard to get people out of paranoid belief system because it is very comforting to them,” says Post.
In other words, the long national nightmare that keeps Birthers up at night—Googling furiously through the shadow of a doubt, fingers crossed, literally hoping against hope—has only just begun. And the rest of us should probably get some sleep."
19 August - Interesting polling results (PDF here)
"85% of Democrats, 48% of independents, and 16% of Republicans give Obama good reviews. All but 4% of respondents who said they voted for him last fall think he’s doing a good job, while just 10% of McCain supporters give him good marks.
Obama’s improvement isn’t a reflection of support for his health care plan though. 47% of voters say they oppose it with just 40% in favor. One poll question indicative of how difficult it is to gain public understanding on a complicated issue asked if respondents thought the government should ‘stay out of Medicare,’ something inherently impossible. 39% said yes.
Only 62% of respondents reported believing that Obama was born in the United States. 10% thought he was born in Indonesia, 7% thought he was born in Kenya, 1% thought he was born in the Philippines, and 20% weren’t sure. Among Republicans 44% think he was not born here while just 36% believe that he was.
“Barack Obama’s in a slightly better situation than he was a month ago,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “It’s not health care or birthers bringing his numbers up though, so maybe it’s the economists reporting we’ve seen the worst of the recession.”
The poll also mentioned that 6% didn't think Hawaii was part of the United States, *rolls eyes*
19 August - The Fantasy Tiddlywinks League, starting to get a clue that their pretend "grand juries" have the legal authority of a toothpick, submit a petition into the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, demanding a real grand jury to investigate their claims.
(Scribd link here)
It's 181 pages of standard birther tripe, ("Barry Soetoro" is his real name, born in Kenya, Indonesian citizen, fake birth certificates, etc.) The cast of characters are the usual, Carl Swensson, Robert Bebeaux, Robert Pinkstaff, and Dr. Penny Kelso, a DVM with a history of legal problems and malpractice claims.
Only the first 52 pages are the actual legal document. The rest are exhibits. Which actually look like a Readers Digest Condensed trip into Birtherville.
Exhibit One - (Page 53) Indonesian school record (the one that gives his birthplace as Honolulu, curiously enough)
Exhibit Two - (Page 54) Page one of the divorce decree between Lolo Soetoro and Stanley Ann Dunham
Exhibit Three - (Page 55-63) a "Declaro Di" full of Bible quotes from "Bishop" Ron McRae, which seems to have absolutely no bearing on anything at all.
Exhibit Four - (Page 64-71)The edited interview transcript that McRae did with Sarah Obama, from Berg's cases. Once again, the birthers seem to ignore the full audio and transcript of the interview
(Full Audio of interview here)
(Full Transcript in PDF format here)
Exhibit Five - (Page 72-94) "Dr. Ron Polarik's" (Ph.D. in Bullshitology) supposed rebuttal to Dr. Neal Krawetz from December of 2008, which is again nothing more than "I'm right because I say I'm right and how dare you question me".
Exhibit Six - (Page 95-96) Robert Pinkstaffs nastygram to President Obama, (somewhat modified copy of Fitzpatrick's nastygram)
Exhibit Seven - (Page 97-98) Mr. Walter Fitzpatrick's nastygram to President Obama
Exhibit Eight - (Page 99-101) Philip Wolf's repeat of Fitzpatrick's nastygram
Exhibit Nine - (Page 102) Richard Martin's repeat of Fitzpatrick's nastygram
Exhibit Ten - (Page 103-104) Richard Keefner's repeat of Fitzpatrick's nastygram
Exhibit Eleven - (Page 105-106) Edward Schriber's repeat of Fitzpatrick's nastygram
Exhibit Twelve - (Page 107-108) Copy of a letter Carl Swensson sent all members of the House and Senate on 3 August 2009 basically demanding they do what he says because they'll be watching their "actions with a keen eye towards complicity and Misprision of Felony"
Exhibit Thirteen - (Page 109) A diagram claiming there's three forms of citizenship, Natural Born Citizen (2 US citizen parents AND born in the US), Citizen (1 US citizen parent), and Native Born Citizen (Born in the US). It's quite interesting, in so far as there's absolutely nothing in the US Constitution or US law to support said claim.
Exhibit Fourteen - (Page 110) The World Nut Daily birth certificate petition, (front page)
Exhibit Fifteen - (Page 111-114) Article from "Canada Free Press" and the "Northeast Intelligence Network" claiming a media blackout on the birther issue.
Exhibit Sixteen - (Page 115-117) Another article from "Canada Free Press" and the "Northeast Intelligence Network" basically claiming that Obama has made himself "King of the Free World".
Exhibit Seventeen - (Page 118-124) A World Nut Daily article from 9 August 2009 about Apuzzo's case and claims.
Exhibit Eighteen - (Page 125-143) An article with many diagrams from birthers.org It doesn't say who wrote it, but seems to go along with the birthers claim that a "Natural-Born" citizen is one with two US citizen parents AND born on US soil, and ends with the rather childish:
"the question now is can America find one honest public servant in Arizona who believes in the supremacy of the US Constitution. If we can find officers of the court loyal to the Constitution then Chris Matthews will really get a tingle up his leg when he sees Obama in the pink underwear issued to him by Sheriff Joe Arpaio"
Exhibit Nineteen - (Page 144-149) Newsmax article from Christopher Ruddy dated 5 August 2009
Exhibit Twenty - (Page 150-152) Blog post from Leo Donofrio
Exhibit Twenty-One - (Page 153-157) Yet another blog post from Leo Donofrio
Exhibit Twenty-Two - (Page 158) Audio of an interview by "Chalice Jackson” on "Patriots Heart Network"
Exhibit Twenty-Three - (Page 159) More Audio of an interview by "Chalice Jackson” on "Patriots Heart Network"
Exhibit Twenty-Four - (Page 160-163) World Nut Daily's 17 August Article that Obama must be 52, not 49, due to his stated age on a "MySpace" page. According to WND, this means he was born while Hawaii was a territory, not a state. (Not that it would make any difference to his US citizenship, mind you)
Exhibit Twenty-Five - (Page 164) Screenshot of said MySpace page.
Exhibit Twenty-Six - (Page 165-169) A 17 August 2009 article from World Nut Daily that basically claims that since there was a 2004 case in New Jersey where birth certificates were faked at the county level, then it's likely the same was done for Obama in 1961. (rolls eyes)
Exhibit Twenty-Seven - (Page 170-176) Another World Nut Daily Article, this one from 16 August 2009 wondering where Stanley Ann Dunham was for six months leading to Obama's birth. (My guess is "dealing with a recent marriage and being pregnant", but that's just me).
Exhibit Twenty-Seven (yes, they have TWO #27's) - (Page 177-181) Another blog post from Leo Donofrio, this one from 19 December 2008.
It looks like this "petition" was done under the "throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" legal theory that the birthers love so much.
Oh, and taking a look at the properties of the PDF is interesting. Because look who shows up:
"Stephen W. Pidgeon, WSBA #25265"
It looks like Stephan Pidgeon took time from ducking DHS agents and being the legal counsel for "Protect Marriage Washington". Maybe he should spend more time telling the signature gathers for PMW that it's not a good idea to lie to people about what they're signing
20 August - Dr. Orly's world-wide fruitbat tour continues with an interview on Israeli TV. (malware warning)
Note, the English translation provided was done by Dr. Orly, so we can safely presume it's completely separated from reality. However, if any Hebrew speaks wants to see the video and judge for themselves. you can find it here.
The "translation" has such charmers as:
"The segment is started by the senior producer Guy Lerer. He states that the birther movement exploded and entered the main stream for 2 reasons
1. my case Cook v Obama, where the military reversed the deployment orders for Major Cook because he asked for verification of Obama’s legitimacy for the position of the commander in chief, prior to deployment to Afghanistan
2. because of my colorful personality"
If by "colorful personality" she means "stark-raving batshit insane", then yes.
"Q How can it happen in US, a country of law? I believe it would be impossible with so many laws on the books?
A That is the whole point, the laws were not followed. Over a hundred llaw suits were filed, questioning Obama’s legitimacy, I brought a number of them, representing clients in CA, GA, FL, TX, Supreme Court, but the judges were scared to tackle this issue. The judges are paralised with fear and that is the sign that the country is loosing it’s freedom of speech and other freedoms"
If the judges are paralyzed by anything, it's laughter. And funny, I didn't think she COULD represent clients in Florida, not being a member of the Bar there OR being admitted Pro Hac Vice either........
"After cameras stoped rolling they introduced me to other talk show hosts from other programs who gathered there as they were interested in the topic and asked me a few more questions about my husband and my family and Mr. Kirsheboim joked, whether I feel like pulling some teeth from time to time. I joked back- Obama’s teeth and I’ll do it with a great discount."
Charming to the last. Wonder if that could be seen as a threat?
21 August - Off-Shores Job Bob over at the Fantasy Tiddlywinks League whacks himself raw over the Carl Swensson's petition filing. (Swensson v "Soetoro")
"Honestly, we don’t care who gets the Judiciary to wake up — American Grand Jury has done its part by educating the people to the Constitutional power of the Grand Jury. We have served almost 300 Courts, Judges, DA’s, Politicians and Legislators across the land."
And been laughed at and otherwise ignored.
" As a result of our efforts the Judiciary is well aware of the eligibility and treason issues surrounding Obama. We have pushed these Judges and Courts hard and they know exactly who we are. Nobody can take that away from us."
Oh, they know exactly who you are. A batch of "sovereign citizens" and other discontents using questionable legal theory to "play pretend jury"
"Personally, I hope Judge Lamberth warms up to the idea of convening a Federal Grand Jury. This Judge is in a bind if he rejects our “Motion to Reconsider” because it then opens the door for an Appeal or possibly a Supreme Court hearing based on Constitutional issues."
And would be kicked right back out of the courts like the previous attempts.
"If he decides to convene a Federal Grand Jury he will in effect do exactly what we asked of the Court all along, to prosecute Obama. I pray the man is not afraid to allow justice to prevail in his courtroom. There is definitely a credibility issue if the Court fails to act on the Presentments or the Petition."
"Credibility" and Swensson's petition have nothing in common.
21 August - Off-shore Jobs Bob states that Grand Juries, to him, ARE one-sided.
"I, for one, am proud of the fact than many one-sided individuals have come together in our American Grand Jury process to accuse Obama. Without standing up for our rights “we the people” would allow this man to get away the crime of the century. God forbid if he does!
If a simple Grand Jury process can bring this man to justice then we will accept all the “one-sided” Presentments we can muster."
Wow, lynch mob mentality at it's finest. "First we'll have the fair trial, THEN we'll hang him!" Never mind that real grand juries aren't drawn from people who are ALREADY convinced of guilt.
22 August - PACER entry on Swensson v "Soetoro"
"U.S. District Court
District of Columbia (Washington, DC)
CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 1:09-mc-00442-RCL
PATRIOT’S HEART MEDIA NETWORK, INC. et al v. SOETORO et al
Assigned to: Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth
Cause: Civil Miscellaneous Case
Date Filed: 08/19/2009
Jury Demand: None
Nature of Suit: 890 Other Statutory Actions
Jurisdiction: U.S. Government Defendant
Date Filed # Docket Text
08/20/2009 1 PETITION FOR THE CONVENING OF A FEDERAL GRAND JURY by PATRIOT’S HEART MEDIA NETWORK, INC., CARL SWENSSON, ROBERT DEBEAUX, ROBERT D. PINKSTAFF, PENNY KELSO. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit s 1-15, # 2 Exhibit s 16-22, # 3 Exhibit s 23-27)(kb) (Entered: 08/20/2009)"
Notice it's filed as a "civil" case, not a criminal case. And notice that, much like he did with the last flaming bag o' poo the Fantasy Tiddlywinks League left in his courtroom, Judge Lamberth classified it as "Miscellaneous".
22 August - Dr. Orly wants her cavity creeps in the courtroom for her 8 September hearing (malware warning)
Sounds like a good way to piss off the judge. Maybe they can rack up some contempt of court citations!
Martin Pinhead spews off again
"Who in hell do these people think they are? Above the law, above recourse? Above a good swift legal kick in the balls? These pieces of dog shit are bought and sold–they sold their soul to the devil long ago– the whole damned lot of them should be put up against a wall and be publically executed for treason, and throw in many in the leftist commie obama ass kissing media, and how many i congress? How many judges and lawyers, how many PR men and women–want to get a view at these pus pimples—read Sinclairs book for starters"
Why on earth do the birthers give any credit at all to a convicted felon and con-artist, who claims to have been a drug mule, illegal alien smuggler and male prositiute?? Oh, right, it's not about truth, it's about the Obamahate.
23 August - Oh, well THAT's comforting. Dr. Orly says "she has had the Blog checked and that there are no viruses or problems and it is safe to use."
Which, of course, is STILL why the malware warning comes up.
23 August - Someone is a bit wishy-washy. Seems that at a town hall meeting, Rep Trent Franks (R - Arizona's 2nd Congresisonal District) had this to say:
"Franks said there was not enough evidence that Obama is not an American citizen. He did say there was a lot of conflicting evidence of Obama's citizenship and that he was considering filing a lawsuit, the only congressman to do so. Franks asked why the president did not simply produce a birth certificate."
Ignoring the fact he HAS, it goes against what he said on 27 July (3:23 on, he says that be believes Barack Obama was born in Hawaii in the United States and therefore is a Constitutional Natural-Born citizen. He even said his office did research and they found records and birth announcements in Hawaii that "couldn't possibly be forged")
Seems like Rep. Franks is being a bit....spineless. Wonder if he said that just to shut the birthers in the audience up, or was pandering to them.
And Bigfoot expert "Citizen" Larry Wells is salivating over Franks now, though one of his readers had this to say
“I have emailed Rep Franks several times,…. and He has responded to me each time….by email and also snail mail letter. Pretty much saying that obama has been vetted and all is in order. MAYBE we should email him some info to WAKE UP his mind a little bit. You prepare what you want and I will make sure he gets it. I will email it and I will also send him a certified letter. WHAT do you think? (I also emailed Sen Mccain,…. but never received any response at all)”
So, misquote, wishy-washy, or pander-bear? We'll see if Rep. Franks really went to Birtherstan.
24 August - Dr. Orly seems to have screwed up her site. Again. And in typical fashion, she blames everyone but herself. (malware warning)
"Please, contact wordpress, demand that they clean up the template and secure the site, I am using their platform. Here’s what I got:
I decrypted what that new script they put at the end of the page. It is another link to malware. Looking at the code I saw they were using standard escape codes. So by , “unescaping” it, the text becomes clear.
(snip)
As you can see, it sends the person to the site spyware-security.cn.. This is the site that is flagged as spreading malware. I think the script was just changed because the scanners had caught on to the signature of the last one.
So either someone has access to your blog and is able to change the coding ( a regular user setting up the blog cannot do that since they use templates provided by WorldPress ), or WorldPress has been hacked and it is on their template ( which means that it is not just your site that has this ). Normally I would suggest you cjhange templates, but you said because of the Berg suit nothing could be changed.
I suggest you contact Worldpress about it."
Ummm.. WordPress is hosted on YOUR SERVER Dr. Orly. So the person adding that script is someone on YOUR side.
24 August - Dr. Orly's bitching that something happened to her facebook. (malware warning)
"I have not done anything that violated Facebook policy. I am a licensed attorney and would not violate any rules. My account was disabled by mistake and I demand to have it fully restored ASAP and I demand all content to be restored asap."
Ignoring the fact she violates courthouse rules ALL THE TIME, I have to wonder if she ran afoul of a TOS violation with Facebook. 3.3, 3.5, 3.6, and 3.8. come to mind.
24 August - Markham Robinson and Wiley Drake discover that Dr. Orly is the legal version of The Hotel California" Plaintiffs can check out anytime they like, but they can never leave.
(scribd link here)
Basically Robinson and Drake have made it clear they didn't want to be removed from the case, unlike what Dr. Orly claimed in court, but rather wanted to be represented by Kreep. Dr. Orly got her panties in a knot, said she didn't think her and Kreep made a good legal team, (I bet you Kreep is absolutely rueing the day he brought Dr. Orly in as co-attorney on this case....)
24 August - Dr. Orly's screaming that she's under all this "cyber attack" and nobody is DOING anything!! (malware warning)
"1. somebody has written a bio about me on wikipedia, that is full of slander and insults. Please contact wikipedia and ask them to clean up the article from slander and insults"
Funny, the article looks pretty accurate to me.
"2. somebody has erased hundreds of thousands of positive articles about me. For example on Yahoo there were close to a million articles and then it fell to 175,000, went up to 450,000 and stayed there. On Google there were nearly 2 million articles, then it fell to a million, then went up to 1.5 million and stayed there. Can someone complain to Yahoo and Google?"
Can you offer any evidence that this actually happened?? Or are you pulling numbers out of your ass again?
"3. Someone disabled my Facebook account"
Yes, it seems to be a TOS violation. You CAN'T follow any rules, can you Dr. Orly?
"4. Someone has tampered with my web site. This is the third web site that is being hacked"
The first site was claimed to be tampered with AFTER you had the second site set up. Your former webmistress on the second site has stated several times that no tampering took place. The problems you're having with the WordPress software look more like your flaming stupidity about how computers work than anything else.
"5. previously an e-mail address connected to my paypal was changed. I took care of it"
You mean you got someone to fix the mistake YOU made??
"6. Previously my case Lightfoot v Bowen was erased from the external docket of the Supreme Court"
But not the internal docket, and the case came up later, along with ALL THE OTHER CASES affected by the server malfunction.
"7. A number of people have reported tampering with my e-mail account, as they don’t get e-mails from me and I don’t get their e-mails."
Or, has is more likely, you're a flaky wackadoodle who doesn't pay attention to her emails.
"8. can someone contact FBI and Department of Justice cyber crimes and demand action. It has been 7 months and no response and no action on their part, even though I reported to them numerous death threats and tampering with my car and my husband’s car."
a) Can't you call them?
b) What's more likely is that they have better and more important things to do than deal with your paranoid rantings. Like watching paint dry.
(bold face mine)
"8. I will have to cut somewhat on the amount of posts and moderation of e-mails and comments. I’ve got some type of poisoning and after working for 20min-half an hour I get really nauseous and have to lay down and rest."
Translation, she's got a summer cold, flu bug, or a bad batch of nitrous, but is milking it to claim "they" are poisoning her.
"I will be doing some testing and lab tests."
Are you being tested twice??
"Meanwhile, please keep your comments short and no links (unwittingly you might bring a virus on the web site via links)."
You might get the virus that's making her sick?? Huh?? (As for computer viruses, didn't you claim that your site was tested and was clean?? Or did you lie about THAT as well??)
"Please cut he amount of e-mails, keep them very succinct and send only if there is something very important. I have some 78,000 e-mails and it takes a lot of my time and effort"
Translation: "Please only send praise emails calling me good things"
25 August - Public Policy Polling does another survey. (PDF here)
"This survey also found Arkansas is home to many ‘birthers,’ as just 45% of voters believe Obama was born in the country."
Of the people in the suvery, 62% were Republican or other, 48% called themselves "Conservative", 84% were white, and 55% thought Rush Limbaugh had a better vision for America.
The GOP has a birther problem alright.
Just a fantastic roundup, Patrick. Beautiful work.
Posted by: Shreiking Wombat | August 25, 2009 at 07:25 PM
This piece of crap in the petition was submitted by one of MommaE goons. He goes by the name Teo' Bear. He live somewhere in South America. Also very good friend with Mtngoat61(Kerchner).
Posted by: Kevin Bellas | August 25, 2009 at 08:51 PM
hahahahahahhaha! The lunacy continues. Great work, Patrick.
Sheesh. All this and Orly wasn't even around. What will tomorrow bring.
Posted by: sus | August 26, 2009 at 12:32 AM
Hey Patrick, another funny summary.
Posted by: John D | September 06, 2009 at 01:07 PM