Have You Been Waiting To See Herr Trumpf And Cruz Go At It? Get The Popcorn

The picture NY Times in-house conservative, David Brooks, conjured up of Ted Cruz is truly ugly. It's hard to imagine anyone reading it and accepting Brooks' reporting and then ever vote for Cruz for anything, let along president. What a horrible, horrible person, the antithesis of all of the teachings of Jesus rolled up into one sad, desperate little man, driven crazy by a psychotic father and with an innate need to dominate others. His old college roommate warned us Cruz was already a monster back in the 1980s. The word that came up most frequently when his former classmates were asked to describe him was "creepy." Brooks goes beyond creepy into brutalism. "Ted Cruz," he wrote, "is now running strongly among evangelical voters, especially in Iowa. But in his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace.

Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Instead, his speeches are marked by a long list of enemies, and vows to crush, shred, destroy, bomb them. When he is speaking in a church the contrast between the setting and the emotional tone he sets is jarring.

Cruz lays down an atmosphere of apocalyptic fear. America is heading off “the cliff to oblivion.” After one Democratic debate he said, “We’re seeing our freedoms taken away every day, and last night was an audition for who would wear the jackboot most vigorously.”

...Cruz manufactures an atmosphere of menace in which there is no room for compassion, for moderation, for anything but dismantling and counterattack. And that is what he offers. Cruz’s programmatic agenda, to the extent that it exists in his speeches, is to destroy things: destroy the I.R.S., crush the “jackals” of the E.P.A., end funding for Planned Parenthood, reverse Obama’s executive orders, make the desert glow in Syria, destroy the Iran nuclear accord.

...The best conservatism balances support for free markets with a Judeo-Christian spirit of charity, compassion and solidarity. Cruz replaces this spirit with Spartan belligerence. He sows bitterness, influences his followers to lose all sense of proportion and teaches them to answer hate with hate. This Trump-Cruz conservatism looks more like tribal, blood and soil European conservatism than the pluralistic American kind.

Evangelicals and other conservatives have had their best influence on American politics when they have proceeded in a spirit of personalism-- when they have answered hostility with service and emphasized the infinite dignity of each person. They have won elections as happy and hopeful warriors. Ted Cruz’s brutal, fear-driven, apocalypse-based approach is the antithesis of that.

What stands in Cruz's way right now-- what will keep him out of the White House-- is Herr Trumpf, who has basically hissed into the ear of every voter in Iowa that Cruz is not qualified to be president because he is not a natural born American citizen. Cruz, who was born in Canada, only recently renounced his Canadian citizenship. Cruz claims-- although many constitutional scholars disagree with him-- that he qualifies because one of his parents, his mother, was a U.S. citizen. His father was a vicious and outspoken America-hater and the claims about his mother are suspect, since her name is on Canadian voter rolls, meaning she, like her husband and son, was a Canadian citizen. It is certainly not a settled matter and Cruz's once solid support in Iowa is rapidly crumbling.



His desperate campaign has been running push polls against Trumpf. Cruz is using several lines of attack. One is that Trump’s recent comments to a Christian audience in Iowa that he has "never asked God for forgiveness" and another just blatantly decries Herr as "a New York liberal pretending to have conservative values." Cruz is already using the New York theme at his rallies. He told a radio show host that Trump should use "New York, New York" as his campaign theme song because he "embodies New York values." Other lines of attack against Trumpf involved his contributions to Democratic candidates, his support for abortion and his embrace of the dreaded "single-payer healthcare," all topics meant to make brainwashed GOP blood boil. A brand new survey from PPP of Iowa Republicans shows that the "birther" issue is already becoming a problem for Cruz.

Only 32% of Iowa Republicans think someone born in another country should be allowed to serve as President, to 47% who think such a person shouldn't be allowed to serve as President. Among that segment of the Republican electorate who don't think someone foreign born should be able to be President, Trump is crushing Cruz 40/14.

Despite all the attention to this issue in the last week, still only 46% of Iowa Republicans are aware that Cruz was not born in the United States. In fact, there are more GOP voters in the state who think Cruz (34%) was born in the United States than think Barack Obama (28%) was. Donald Trump knows what he's doing when he repeatedly brings up this issue-- 36% of Cruz voters aren't aware yet that he wasn't born in the United States, and 24% of Cruz voters say someone born outside the country shouldn't be allowed to be President. So this issue has the potential to be a difference maker with the race persistently so close in Iowa.

And this evening it came out that-- speaking of New York values-- Cruz's storied Senate campaign-- something he's been lying about for years-- was financed by a 'til now undisclosed, low interest loan from New York, New York banksters Goldman Sachs (and another from Citibank)-- around a million dollars worth.

Neither loan appears in reports the Ted Cruz for Senate Committee filed with the Federal Election Commission, in which candidates are required to disclose the source of money they borrow to finance their campaigns. Other campaigns have been investigated and fined for failing to make such disclosures, which are intended to inform voters and prevent candidates from receiving special treatment from lenders.

Cruz is now claiming, "oops, someone forgot to report it," but he certainly didn't forget whose interests to vote for in the Senate where he always took the side of the banksters against his own Texas constituents, despite playing a populist on TV. Hypocritically, he's denounced Goldman Sachs-- "Like many other players on Wall Street and big business, they seek out and get special favors from government"-- while voting consistently to give them special favors from the government. The tax plan he's running on today couldn't be more favorable to the banksters if they wrote it themselves. So far this cycle, the only senator the Financial Sector has given more money to than Cruz is their indentured servant, Chuck Schumer. Cruz has taken in $1,795,845. Career long, the banksters have given him $4,134,237. This is what Bernie talks about when he points out how so many politicians are for sale.

Nine degrees of conspiracy kookification: "The Attack of the Gay Muslim Kenyan Divorcee President"

by Ken

"It was both a good year and a bad one for conspiracy theories and theorists," says The New Yorker's Alex Koppelman in a new blogpost, "2012: The Year of the Attack of the Gay Muslim Kenyan Divorcee President."

For one thing, Neil Armstrong died. That was sad for many reasons; included among them is that now he'll never be able to reveal the secret about the moon landing. On the other hand, it was a Presidential-election year, a particularly fertile time for conspiracy theorizing. People are fixated on an enemy, and they just need to take the next step and imagine all of the diabolical things that enemy could be up to. They certainly did plenty of that in 2012. Here are twelve of the highlights of the year's conspiracy theories. For the record, none of them are true.

Alex ventures that we're "probably familiar with this one already":

1. Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

He has a little more to say about this, but let's come back to that, and for now move on to his first embellished version.You're probably familiar with this one already -- after all, it's been around since at least 2008.

2. Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or maybe not, because his father is actually an American Communist.

This one, he says, comes from WorldNetDaily, "the 'birther' headquarters," which progressed to the direct-to-DVD documentary "Dreams from My Real Father," advancing the ideat "that Obama's real father is in fact not Barack Obama, Sr., but Frank Marshall Davis, an American Communist who was friendly with Obama's grandfather Stanley." Alex says, "There's no credible evidence for this. But that hasn't stopped the birthers before, so forget about that for a second." He points out that if you accept this notion, it renders "instantly moot" all of W.N.D.'s strenuous efforts to prove its birther theories.

3. Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or maybe not, because his father is actually an American Communist. Also, he's gay.

(Assorted crazinesses from assorted sources.)

4. Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or maybe not, because his father is actually an American Communist. Also, he's gay, and maybe he was married to his roommate.

This courtesy of the ineffably insane Jerome Corsi, the man who gave us the Swift Boat lies about John Kerry. "In at least one instance," says, Alex, "Corsi connected the two theories."

5. Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or maybe not, because his father is actually an American Communist. Also, he's gay, and maybe he was married to his roommate, and his wedding ring proves that he's a Muslim.

(More pure crackpottery.)

6. Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or maybe not, because his father is actually an American Communist. Also, he's gay, and maybe he was married to his roommate, and his wedding ring proves that he's a Muslim. And there's something suspicious in his college records.

"Some of the birthers," says Alex, "suspect that Obama’s applications and financial-aid records would prove that he was registered as a foreign student, or maybe that his tuition was being paid for by secret Muslim Manchurian Candidate trainers."

7. Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or maybe not, because his father is actually an American Communist. Also, he's gay, and maybe he was married to his roommate, and his wedding ring proves that he's a Muslim. And there's something suspicious in his college records. Plus, he once almost got divorced from Michelle.

In October no less excellent a source than Donald Trump promised a bombshell revelation. "Turns out," says Alex, "that [it] was not, in fact, records that showed the Obamas almost filing for divorce. Let this be a lesson to you all: never, ever take Donald Trump seriously."

8. Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or maybe not, because his father is actually an American Communist. Also, he's gay, and maybe he was married to his roommate, and his wedding ring proves that he's a Muslim. And there's something suspicious in his college records. Plus, he once almost got divorced from Michelle. So he's going to lose the election, but he's skewing the jobs numbers.

Conspiracy theorists on the right tend to believe that the U.S. government is terrible at everything -- except at complex statistical manipulation and at keeping secrets. People like Jack Welch actually believed that the White House would push the Department of Labor to rig the unemployment and jobs numbers to help Obama win reëlection -- and that Labor would then be able to pull off their task with no one blabbing to the press.

As a matter of fact, it seems that various parts of the government were underestimating the economy's performance before the election. Late last month, the Commerce Department revised its estimate of how much the American economy grew in the third quarter of this year up from two per cent to 2.7 per cent, a significant change. For some reason, we didn't hear much from Welch about that.

9. Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or maybe not, because his father is actually an American Communist. Also, he's gay, and maybe he was married to his roommate, and his wedding ring proves that he's a Muslim. And there's something suspicious in his college records. Plus, he once almost got divorced from Michelle. So he's going to lose the election, but he's skewing the jobs numbers -- and the media is skewing the polls.

For a little while, it was all anyone in the political world -- campaign staffers, pundits, reporters, observers of all kinds -- could talk about. Suffice it to say that the polls were not skewed and Nate Silver will be inaugurated as the forty-fifth President of the United States on January 21, 2013.

SADLY, ALEX HAS TO TURN TO SOME "ON-THE-ONE-HAND,
ON-THE-OTHER-HAND" PRETEND "EVEN-HANDEDNESS"

Actually, there's already something weird in his discussion of the anti-Obama idiocies. Does anyone think this is a remotely reasonable review of the history of the Obama-the-Kenyan craziness. He does say that "it's been around since at least 2008." He continues, though: "But with the President up for reëlection, it came back in a big way in 2012. Even Mitt Romney was joking about it on the campaign trail."

I'm sorry, but among the people to whom this ridiculous story matters, it never went away. Of course it got more hearing in the election year, because it was, you know, an election year. That's when issues -- whether real or imaginary -- become, at least potentially, campaign issues. Is that really such a difficult concept?

Here's how Alex lays out his case for three more crazy conspiracy theories, these "from the left":

Until now, this list may have made you think that conservatives are the only paranoid people around. Not so! Some people are more prone than others to seeing patterns of malicious intent where none exists, but that's not a left-right thing. True, there have been more conspiracy theories coming out of the right lately, but that's probably more a function of structural factors -- a Democratic President, a conservative media establishment that's built around the idea that conventional sources are lying to you -- than anything else.

That doesn't seem to me at all to explain the birther kooky conspiracy theories, which seem to me quintessential specimens of modern-day right-wing flight from reality, replaced by the movement-conservative doctrine that reality is whatever it makes you feel better to believe it is.

Here then, are his examples of liberal tale-spinning this year:

10. Mitt Romney paid no taxes, maybe for one year, or maybe for a bunch of them.

Here we see one of the real problems that conspiracy theories pose for society. The low tax rate that Romney has paid over the years is a legitimate issue, one that was worth discussing. The suggestion that he was so good at avoiding taxes that in some years he paid none at all, however? With nothing but speculation to support it, it was just a shiny object distracting us from the loopholes and inequities in the tax code that allowed Romney to pay as little as he did. Worse, it was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who was dangling this particular shiny object. But hey, who wants to accomplish something useful when you can fuel conspiracy theories for short-term political gain, right?

Some of this is fine, but Alex has declared at the outset about his 12 conspiracy theories from 2012s: "For the record, none of them are true." Would he care to explain how he knows that no. 10 isn't true? Willard made damn sure we didn't find out, and now may never find out. I think you could make a case that, at least in part, and perhaps in good part, his decision cost him any realistic shot at the presidency.

Which brings us to the pathetically obvious point that the birther craziness is based on nothing factual, and can be explained as the product of ignorance and delusion in an environment of churning rage based on a militant denial of reality. In the case of Willard's taxes, the founding fact is that he staked his political future on his adamant insistence that nobody would see anything more that those two years' worth of carefully manicured returns. And it's not as if this man whose principal qualification for the presidency was supposed to be his CEO's-eye business acumen knew for damn sure how important it is to have a 10-year history of tax returns for vetting a candidate, because all his VP contenders had to supply same. If it makes me a wild-eyed liberal conspiracy theorist to say that it sure looks like there's something really big being hidden in those cloistered returns, well, I guess I'll have to live with that.

11. Mitt Romney paid no taxes, maybe for one year, or maybe for a bunch of them. And the only reason he won the first debate is because he cheated.

"It was a handkerchief, people," Alex explains -- in toto. Well, I'm sorry, this is just bullshit, in now way comparable to the right-wing kookeries.

12. Mitt Romney paid no taxes, maybe for one year, or maybe for a bunch of them. And the only reason he won the first debate is because he cheated. He's got a plan to cheat on Election Day, too -- his son owns the voting machines.

Here's a good -- if not totally foolproof -- way to check if something is a legitimate issue or a conspiracy theory: if it involves the words "voting machines," it's probably just a conspiracy theory.

Well, again, I'm sorry but this one link doesn't for me begin to make a dent in all we know about the quite elaborate conspiracies Republican operatives have been engaging in at least going back to the 2000 election to tilt and where possible steal elections. (It seems worth pointing out that conspiracies that don't achieve all their objectives, or haven't yet, are still conspiracies.) Waving your hand at it doesn't make all this body of information disappear.

(Or maybe it does.)

#

Will Colorado's 6th CD Put Up With An Extremist Congressman Who Insists The President "Is Not An American?"

When far right extremist Mike Coffman picked up the mantle of racism and bigotry from longtime congressman Tom Tancredo and took over his seat in Congress, the 6th district was pretty rural and filled with an awful lot of primitive folks who get all their information from Fox and Hate Talk Radio. A typical political discussion Elbert County-- where Coffman won 80% of the vote in 2010-- might be between people arguing if Limbaugh is as conservative as Glenn Beck or Michael Savage or about how Obama hasn't confiscated their guns yet so he could win reelection and then confiscate their guns. The county is 95.22% white and the median family income is $66,740. It's the most right-wing part of the 6th district and it consistently skewers the election results towards Republicans. President Obama won Colorado in 2008 with 54% of the vote. He took 46% in the 6th district, his second-worst performing in the state. And in Elbert-- a mere 29%! They don't cotton to even moderately progressive ideas there-- and they don't cotton to black people. This year Colorado has been redistricted and the 6th is now officially a swing district with equal numbers of Republicans, Democrats and independents. Had Obama and McCain run inside these new boundaries in 2008, it wouldn't have been a 53-46% win for McCain. It would have been a 54-45% win for Obama.

So, of course, when deranged wingnut Mike Coffman decided to send a message to the storm troopers on the far right, he goose-stepped right down to Elbert County and made his crackpot speech about how President Obama isn't an American. Watch the video up top. It will give you some valuable insight not just about what Coffman said, but about the character of this man and about how cowardly and craven he is as a human being.

We first introduced DWT readers to Coffman's opponent, state Rep. Joe Miklosi, last October. At the time Joe told us why he had decided to take on Coffman and run for Congress and how he had "spent the last decade fighting to promote progressive values in Colorado. We’ve stood steadfast with those who are squeezed between Wall Street elites and an unresponsive government bureaucracy. Our dedication to individual empowerment and our commitment to fairness is reflected in a bluer Colorado... In 2004, I served as the Executive Director for the House Majority Project that won control of the State House for the first time in 40 years. In 2008, I became a candidate myself and was elected and re-elected to the Colorado State House of Representatives. Because of our progressive success, Colorado is stronger, more vibrant, and more livable. While keeping our state budget fiscally sound, our continued support for industries such as renewable energy and biotechnology has resulted in 5,000 new companies. Due to progressive leadership, 13,500 low-income children now receive school breakfast so they can focus their energy on learning instead of when and where they’ll have their next meal. We must continue to advance these progressive values. That is why I sponsored the Colorado Dream Act." But the social issues, for all their importance, isn't the main thing Miklosi is challenging Coffman on.

Energy policy is one of the most important issues in this campaign. The next time you hear the chant "Drill Baby Drill!” I hope you will join me with the call to “Build Baby Build!”

We must build an energy infrastructure for the next generation. We can put thousands of Americans to work building a world class energy grid, clean and renewable energy production, and energy efficient products for our daily lives.

Our dependence on foreign oil has been a defining issue since the 1970s, and our leaders are defined by their failure to act boldly. We cannot truly empower individuals if we are collectively held hostage by foreign energy. Foreign control of energy prices disrupts businesses and families, stagnates economic growth, and undermines cleaner, renewable energy industries.

The billions of dollars we lose each year are directly tied to our staggering trade deficits. Energy independence is both an economic empowerment and national security issue.

After that guest post, the redistricting ended and it became clear that the 6th CD would be a winnable race for a progressive Democrat with a record like Joe's. Blue America endorsed him and, eventually, even the DCCC came to the party. He's one of the only progressives they've given the nod to this year, among the trash heap of conservative and anti-Choice, anti-LGBT, anti-family garbage at the center of their efforts. Today you can find Joe Miklosi on the Blue America ActBlue page. I suspect that the reason Joe made it onto the Red-to-Blue program is because he is being heavily championed by progressive Boulder Congressman Jared Polis. Joe is a movement progressive and he's been getting support from NARAL, the League of Conservation Voters, DFA, Peace Action West, and other groups concerned with the issues and values that motivate progressives.

OMG! Congressman Mike Coffman Has Been Turned Into A Zombie

You'll recall that a few weeks ago, Mike Coffman, the right-wing extremist in a neck-and-neck congressional battle outside Denver with Blue America-endorsed Joe Miklosi, had too much to drink at a campaign fundraising event and went publicly insane. He told a stunned audience of Republicans at the Elbert County Fairgrounds-- unprompted-- what he thinks of this country's elected President: “I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.”

Coffman's been in hiding since then, not from the Secret Service or from Democrats, but from the media. Well, Tuesday he finally broke the silence... but I bet he wishes he hadn't taken so many of his wife's painkillers before he did. And God only knows how much Jägermeister he downed to help him to work up the courage to answer a couple of questions from Channel 9 and face the music. Forthcoming he wasn't. Doesn't the NRCC help their most endangered candidates with damage control experts? Coffman sure is in desperate need of a team. All he could muster was a lame one-line talking point to repeated questions. He sounds like a zombie... I mean even more than usual.

9NEWS Reporter Kyle Clark approached Coffman outside a closed door fundraiser Tuesday night after the Coffman campaign ignored several requests over several days to schedule an interview with the congressman.

Coffman reiterated that he misspoke and apologized, but would not elaborate. Coffman offered the same one-line explanation to every question asked, including when he was asked if he would answer any question with a different response.

Coffman had steadfastly refused to speak on camera regarding his May 12th comment at a fundraiser in Elbert County. The comments, recorded and posted online by a Coffman supporter, were first aired by 9NEWS.

...The House of Representatives is on a recess and Coffman has been lying low. On Saturday, he did not show up as expected to an event in Aurora, instead sending an aide who read a statement saying the congressman was sick. Constituents calling Coffman's district office have been told he has no public meetings or appearances during the recess.

The low-profile is a departure for the typically-accessible Coffman, who has appeared on 9NEWS (often at his request) sixteen times over the last twelve months, discussing topics as varied as payroll taxes, wildfire mitigation and the importance of Memorial Day.

When 9NEWS was unable to schedule an interview with Coffman, Reporter Kyle Clark approached him in public.

Their conversation, in its entirety, was as follows:

KYLE CLARK: Congressman Coffman, how are you?

REP. COFFMAN: How are you doing? Good to see you.

KYLE CLARK: Good to see you. You're a tough man to find lately.

REP. COFFMAN: I am.

KYLE CLARK: Can we chat quickly before you go inside?

REP. COFFMAN: Sure.

KYLE CLARK: Alright, fantastic. Why don't we head right over here so we're out of the way. Thank you for your time. I apologize for showing up unannounced. I've been trying to call your staff. They won't return my phone calls. Let me ask you, after your comments about the President, do you feel voters are owed a better explanation than just, I misspoke?

REP. COFFMAN: I think that... Umm... I stand by my statement that I misspoke and I apologize.

KYLE CLARK: OK. And who were you apologizing to?

REP. COFFMAN: You know, I stand by my statement that I misspoke and I apologize.

KYLE CLARK: I apologize, we talk to you all the time, you're a very forthcoming guy. Who's telling you not to talk and to handle it like this?

REP. COFFMAN: I stand by my statement, that I wrote, that you have, and I misspoke and I apologize.

KYLE CLARK: Was it that you thought it would go over well in Elbert County where folks are very conservative and you'd never say something like that in the suburbs?

REP. COFFMAN: I stand by my statement that I misspoke and I apologize.

KYLE CLARK: Is there anything I can ask you that you'll answer differently?

REP. COFFMAN: You know, I stand by my statement that I misspoke and I apologize.

KYLE CLARK: Thank you, congressman.

REP. COFFMAN: Thank you.

9NEWS Political Analyst Floyd Ciruli says Coffman is trapped between apologizing further and antagonizing his conservative base, or digging in and alienating the unaffiliated voters who now make up a third of his newly-competitive redrawn district.

"Clearly he was given the advice by his top funders and best advisors to say nothing," Ciruli said. "The strategy of silence is extremely difficult to pull off."

"It looks like you're hiding," Ciruli said. "It looks defensive. It makes you look vulnerable."

Just how vulnerable Coffman is remains to be seen. He holds a substantial fundraising edge over his Democratic opponent, State Representative Joe Miklosi.

Oh, good idea. You can help Joe Miklosi, a dedicated and independent-minded progressive, beat the zombies (see below) here at the Blue America ActBlue page.

Mike Coffman Is A Deranged Crackpot, Which Is Different From Being A "Moderate"

I was doing some late night tweeting a couple nights ago when a report came over the transom about far right sociopath Mike Coffman going off the deep end at a campaign fundraiser. Since Blue America is supporting Coffman's Democratic opponent, Joe Miklosi, I was happy to get the word out. Here's what Coffman had to say at the Elbert County Fairgrounds-- unprompted-- which stunned even his partisan GOP audience:

“I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.”

No one has mentioned if Coffman was high on drugs or drunk but when the story started breaking, his office issued a terse statement: "I misspoke and I apologize.” He misspoke? What is it he meant to say? "...that in his kidney he's not an American?" In his pituitary gland?

Then the next morning I woke up and one of my most trusted news sources, TPM, had the most bizarre tweets about the incident:


And what are they high on? Moderate GOPer? Mike Coffman? Moderate in what way? He only drinks after work? He only kills puppy dogs on weekends, but never during the week? They can't possibly be talking about his voting record. Mike Coffman is one of the most radical right extremists to have ever slipped into the United States Congress-- and that extremism is going to lose him his seat. He replaced Tom Tancredo and he's been more extreme than even Tancredo-- even on Tancredo's signature issue, immigration. Coffman has a 5.57 ProgressivePunch lifetime voting score on crucial roll calls. There isn't a single category of issues on which he could be described as "moderate" in any known universe. Example-- there are 8 subcategories that make up Labor Rights. Coffman scored 0.00. There are 7 subcategories that make up Justice for All: Civil and Criminal. Coffman scored 0.00. Health Care has 17 subcategories; Coffman scored a 0.00 in every single one of them. Housing policy-- o.00. From Family Planning to Fair Taxation to LGBT equality Coffman is consistent: 0.00. Words have meanings. Referring to a radical right extremist like Mike Coffman as a "moderate" turns the world on its head. Maybe TPM has looking for the word neo-fascist and the auto-correct thing kicked in?

And by the way, while we're at it, his opponent has been a leader in the Colorado state legislature for a progressive agenda that will return the state to a more moderate perspective across the board. Helping elect Joe Miklosi is a worthwhile goal-- one that redistricting has made very possible. The sixth district is no longer the red hellhole it was when Tancredo was being elected and reelected-- and when Coffman was picked to succeed him. This is now a classic swing district with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans and plenty of Independents. That's why Coffman attempted a half-assed apology so fast. Normal voters who haven't been brainwashed by Fox and Limbaugh don't cotton to that kind of talk-- nor to his kind of voting record. If you'd like to help Joe beat him in November you can help at the Blue America ActBlue page.

Can the mental health system do anything for Orly Taitz? How about people who pay any attention to birther crackpottery?

You don't really want to watch this, do you? If so, you won't forget to shower after, will you?

by Ken

I suppose you could say that what matters is that the New Hampshire Ballot Law commission listened to another round of Orly Taitz's birther ravings and then got on with their business. From Luke Johnson's HuffPost account, based on a Concord Monitor report:

New Hampshire's Ballot Law Commission rejected unanimously Friday "birther queen" Orly Taitz's argument to keep President Barack Obama off the presidential ballot because she insists that the president's birth certificate is a fake.

"A child can see this is a forgery," she said in her testimony. She also alleged the president did not have a valid social security number.

No, Orly, what that child can see is that you're either a pathological liar desperate for attention or a mental case in even more desperate need of therapeutic intervention.

Ballot Law Commission Chairman Bradford Cook asked Ms. Taitz, ""Is there any decision, anyplace, by any body -- adjudicatory body -- to the questions you're asking? Because they've been asked a lot of places." To which she replied, "Yes, but -- ," and Chairman Cook said, "No. Thank you."

So why can't I just ignore another siege of Orly. First, because this is only the dawn of the presidential election season, and serves as an ominous sign of what lies ahead. Second, and probably most important, because hardly any one on the Right or in the Republican Party has given this nonsense the unequivocal brush-off that can be the only acceptable reply, and in fact enormous sectors of that sector have pointedly allowed this poison to fester if not actually encouraged it.

Finally, because so many lost souls are still listening, evidently too whacked out to use their brains for anything more useful, interpreting even the slightest nudge in the direction of reality or sanity as an assault by liberals. I plucked a few comments off the YouTube page, more or less at random:

This woman making the allegations and having proof that Oboma is not a citizen of the United States was born in the Soviet Union: it is a shame that people born outside of our country know more about our laws than average natural born americans. She is eloquent in her testimony concerning this matter: she has the proof : you prefer being blind and lend into slavery that is your buisness: However I will fight progressive's and their agenda with or yourwith you. Ignorance is Bliss.
SuperBluegrass2010

No other President in the history of the United States comes from a background even 1/2 as murky as Obama's. He's a fucking complete fraud for A to Z! They even have to photo-shop family pictures for him to support the mythological background story they created for him. What other President had a domestic terrorist pen his "autobiography" for him but Obozo? He's ridiculous and if he was ever properly investigated we would be floored by the size and scope of his frauds!
StompingRabbits

It's good to see an immigrant like Orly Taitz uphold our Constitution. Unlike Fareed Zakaria, a Muslim immigrant, who is a traitor to the USA. When he became a citizen, he took an an oath of allegiance to uphold the Constitution and doesn't. He believe our Constitution is obsolete. He and his family should be deported immediately. Zakaria is not a real citizen. Orly is a patriot. Go Orly!!! The usurper Obama must be removed from the Oval Office NOW!!!
Americanrevolution02

I look at this stuff, and all I think of is the poor Simpleton who at the end of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov -- as a crowd of ever-gullible Russian peasants eagerly hails a bogus pretender to the Russian throne, merely the latest disaster-in-the-making for Russia and for them -- whines:

Flow, flow, bitter tears.
Weep, weep, true-believing soul!
Soon the enemy will come and dark will fall.
Dark darkness, impenetrable.
Woe, woe unto Russia.
Weep, weep, Russian people.
Hungry people.

[ed. Rimsky-Korsakov] Ivan Kozlovsky, tenor (the Simpleton); Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, Nikolai Golovanov, cond. Melodiya, recorded 1948-49 [audio link]

And that's final curtain.

I'm weeping, all right. Oh yes, I'm weeping.

#

Who Says Washington Doesn't Listen?

-by Noah

Back on April 27th, I wrote a post about how I figured the Repug Party would react to the news that President Obama had released his long form birth certificate. Considering the daily and even hourly displays of Republican insanity, my speculations were pretty realistic. But, at the end of my post, I hinted at the commercialization of everything and I asked “Can I have that certificate printed on a mug for my tea?
 
Well, we may not have an end to oil subsidies, even though 74% of the American public has requested that of our bought and sold U.S. Senators. Also, Washington may still be spending billions times billions of our taxpayer dollars in Afghanistan and buying off Wall Street scam artists and bankster flim-flammers, but, hey, sometimes it’s the little things; the very little things.

Yesterday, I was greeted with the news, by way of a White House mass emailing, from BarackObama.com that, yes, the president’s birth certificate will indeed now be available, not only on my requested mug but also on a t-shirt. See! The White House listens! They feel my pain! I can now have a spiffy birth certificate mug for my tea (I don’t drink coffee)! 

Now, I have some additional requests:

1. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a deluxe version that had the birth certificate just disappear as the level of your beveridge went down? Kinda like those old “disappearing clothes” cocktail glasses with the pretty ladies on ‘em?
 
2. OK. Don’t like that one? Too expensive? How about a simple bit of guerilla marketing? What if every lefty bought a mug, or two, and sent it to FOX “News” headquarters in New York? I’d love to see a million of them turn up on their doorstep. This plan would raise millions for FOX’s arch-enemy, President Obama, and cause them a major headache. Imagine the pain it would cause FOX, birther champions that they are, if this plan became some sort of highly ironic viral reality that helped re-elect President Obama. Hell, even I might vote for him. This plan might even save the U.S. Postal Service!
 
3. Send one to the Repug of your choice. Trump? Bachmann? Hannity? Boehner? Fruitcakes all! Just imagine the fun that will ensue for these hate-mongers as their offices are overwhelmed with little boxes of mugs; everyday bringing a fresh shipment to replace the ones discarded the day before. It’s clear that the only way to deal with these people is to drive them up the wall. Makes a great holiday gift for that wacko relative, too! So, have at it. No mercy!
 
4. Speaking of no mercy. You know how Republicans think that Obama wants to indoctrinate school kids with his evil socialistic secret muslim, dastardly “Kenyan world view” ways? Well, kids love stickers! That’s right. Flood our schools with little 3x3 birth certificate stickers! Our nation’s kids will be plastering them everywhere! What’s not to like? Can birth certificate lunch boxes be far behind? No wonder nutjob Republican governors are closing schools as fast as they can.
 
The White House has managed to turn the beliefs and delusions of the Republican Birth Certificate Cult to their advantage. However, polls show that 30% of the crackpot party still believes President Obama was born elsewhere. Crazy is as crazy does. I fully expect the Repugs to dismiss the mugs by claiming that it’s just a conspiracy to sell Kenyan coffee and make it some sort of mandated “national drink.” Maybe it’s time for President Obama to just say “I showed you mine. Now, you show yours.” It would fit nicely on the t-shirt, too.

Freakshow Politics: I Heard The News Today, Oh Boy

- By Noah

Great. So President Obama has shown us his full birth certificate. I wonder what the Repug Party will find wrong with it. We already know that some of them don’t believe that Hawaii “is in America.” But now we should expect stories about how the typeface didn’t exist in 1961, and the color of the paper hadn’t been invented yet. Then, some Republican congresscretin from Texas or some other land of total dementia will go before the cameras with a story about how, when he was just a boy vacationing in Hawaii with his family, he saw a flying saucer decorated with Muslim crescents land on the beach one night, hand Obama’s parents a baby in a blue blanket, and then take off for parts unknown in galaxies far, far away.
 
The congresscretin’s story will tear the Repug Party apart once and for all as half of the party accepts the story as proof that the President is not “from around here,” and, the other half will be mightily conflicted when a former evangelical public access TV “pastor,” new to a prime time slot at FOX “News” convinces them that this story might be evidence that Obama might actually be of divine origin, even if he is a registered Democrat. Trumpy the clown will respond to them saying, “Yeah? Well then how come he’s black?”
 
As the 2012 primary season drags along, perhaps we should demand to see Trump’s tax returns and divorce records for the last 40 years, proof that Palin graduated from the 6th grade, Bachmann’s Certificate of Sanity, some sort of documentation that Huckabbee doesn’t hangout at playgrounds, proof that Mitt Romney’s hair is actually hair and not some molded hardshell plastic thingie that was fused to his head during his previous life as a department store mannequin, and proof that Ron Paul wasn’t piloting that UFO.
 
Can I have that certificate printed on a mug for my tea? Or, will I have to settle for a special edition McDonalds soda cup and birth certificate napkin set?

Barney Frank Knows Wing Nuts Will Never Vote For Him Or Like Him

Tonight Barney Frank conducted a health care town hall in his Massachusetts district and, needless to say, crazed birthers and deathers and every variety of wingnut came crawling out of the muck. I wish Barney could explain to President Obama that this hard core 30% of kooks or so-- across the country, who spend their time listening to Limbaugh and watching Beck and O'Reilly-- will never like him and he might as well give up trying to persuade them. Most members of Congress kiss ass to even the craziest of constituents. Watch how Barney Frank, year after year voted the smartest man in Congress, handled the craziest of his constituents. And if you like... come over and let him know.

Oklahoma Congressloon John Sullivan Officially Joins The Birthers

Would you let your young child near this guy?

Lifelong binge drinker and wingnut John Sullivan is back from his taxpayer-funded stay at the Betty Ford Clinic. He claims he's no longer tempted by alcohol. But he's doubling down on the crazy wingnuttery. According to the very conservative Tulsa World, Sullivan, addressing a mob of Republican activists at a health care forum at the Summit Club, questioned the authenticity of Barack Obama's birth certificate. Without having his alcoholism as an excuse for his psychotic pronouncements, does Sullivan really have a reasonable shot at being re-elected next year?

Despite Oklahoma suddenly leaning Democratic in party identification, lets' not kid ourselves. Oklahoma gave McCain a bigger percentage of it's vote (66%) than any other state in the Union, even more than the three crazy Mormon states! And Obama did even worse in Sullivan's Tulsa-based district (OK-01) than Kerry had in 2000. At the same time, Sullivan also netted 66% of the votes in the district.

Out of a possible score of 100 on the ProgressivePunch scale of progressiveness, Sullivan rated a 0.86! (He must have had a couple drinks too many one day and accidentally cast a vote that favored working families for a change.) He isn't even the most far right member of the sociopathic Oklahoma congressional delegation. Mary Fallin, who represents Oklahoma City, the only part of the state where Obama actually did reasonably well, has a rating of 0.37! (She's been burnishing her image for a run for the governorship.) Tom Cole and Frank Lucas are relative socialists though with scores of 1.53 and 1.57 on the scale, beating out in the race to the bottom of the fringe barrel such celebrated extremists and national cranks as Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Dan Burton (R-IN, but owned by the government of Turkey) and Dan Lungren (R-CA).

Back to supposedly the rehabilitated Rep. Sullivan. The Tulsa Teabag Tribune reports that Sullivan can expect stiff competition, both from a Blue Dog type Democrat, conservative Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor, and from a gaggle of far right Republicans.

Certain Republicans in Oklahoma City are wondering if investing in Sullivan is a lost cause and if it isn’t time to invest in a candidate who would win.

People like to back a winner.

On the Republican side, former State Sen. Scott Pruitt is being urged to jump into the GOP primary against Sullivan in 2010.

Pruitt ran against Sullivan in his first campaign and lost in the primary.

Pruitt has interest in an Oklahoma City baseball team but maintains his home in Broken Arrow. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2006.

He is a conservative Evangelical who has always had an eye for higher office.

Other conservative Republicans in Tulsa are hoping that former Gov. Frank Keating would run for the First District.

Keating is moving back to Oklahoma after working in Washington, D.C., for a few years. He was a successful two-term governor and was on the short list for vice president with George W. Bush.

Family sources say Keating is not going to run. His wife, former First Lady Cathy Keating, lost to Sullivan in the Republican primary in 2001 in a major upset.

A host of Republicans are hoping to persuade former State Sen. Jim Williamson to run for the First District. They would have liked to draft Williamson for mayor but Williamson declined. He might like the idea of a higher office.

Williamson has not said he will make that race but he hasn’t ruled it out.

That Tulsa World story linked above sums up Sullivan and his confusion nicely: "Sullivan began by saying he questioned the authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate and alluding to what he said is an 'enemies list' the administration is compiling from e-mails critical of the Democrats' health care reform initiative, but concluded with a call for less bickering." Maybe he only did eleven steps.

Senate, Clunkers, Birthers, Missouri And Unintelligent Design

Will Missouri imbecile tweet up a bipartisan solution to birtherism?

This morning Politico named 7 of the 9 freshman and sophomore Democrats, all "centrists," who are doing the foot-dragging on health care reform: Kay Hagan (NC), Claire McCaskill (MO), Jim Webb (VA), Mark Begich (AK), Mark Warner (VA), Amy Klobuchar (MN), and Michael Bennet (CO). They don't seem to care what's in the bill, so long as it can be labeled "bipartisan." If that were the attitude of more worthy representatives of the electorate of yore, we would still be an English colony. Or we'd still be cursed with slavery. We certainly wouldn't have women or minorities or poor people voting. And there would be no Social Security, no minimum wage and certainly no Medicare.

Also this morning, the pathetic, anti-democratic, bribe-ridden and bedraggled Senate-- which should never have been created and certainly should be abolished-- grumpily reached an agreement regarding the House's extension of the Cash For Clunkers program, which is wildly popular among Americans and-- for that reason-- extremely disliked by Republicans and a handful of confused Democrats bipartisans (led by twittering idiot Claire McCaskill).

The Senate has cleared the way for a vote extending the "cash-for-clunkers" program, which offers car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 for trading in their gas-guzzlers for new, higher-mileage models, setting aside Republican opposition to the plan.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday he had several very good conversations with Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and there is "a significant majority" that wants to move forward with the legislation.

Reid said the Senate would have to stay in session on Friday if lawmakers wanted to make changes to the bill.

Reid had said on Tuesday that he had the votes to pass a $2 billion extension already approved by the House. The funding would triple the cost of $1 billion rebate program and give as many as a half-million more Americans the chance to grab the new car incentives through September.

Car companies have credited the clunkers program with driving up sales in late July. Most consumers are buying smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles under the program, according to a list of the top-10 selling cars released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

I have no idea how the dull-witted McCaskill plans to vote on this-- presumably with the Republicans. She probably won't get much attention back in Missouri one way or the other since the whole state seems obsessed with the birther scandal manufactured by right-wing opponents of Obama's agenda. Roy Blunt, of course, is leading the charge. What a team he and Claire would make in the Senate! Perhaps, instead of sticking to facts, they could come up with a bipartisan approach to birtherism-- since so many (crazy and delusional) people believe so, so, so strongly that Obama was born in either Kenya, Indonesia, or Mexico (why not North Korea?) The real facts are up on Salon today. But I bet Blunt and McCaskill could come up with a new set of factoids-- tweet-sized, like their brains-- that all the folks who listen to Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs will believe.

Myth 1: Obama wasn't born in the U.S.

This is the big one. It may also be the most easily refuted. First of all, during the presidential campaign, Obama released a certification of live birth, which is the official document you get if you ask Hawaii for a copy of your birth certificate. There are allegations that what Obama released is a forgery, but state officials have repeatedly affirmed its authenticity and said they've checked it against the original record and that Obama was indeed born in Hawaii.

If that wasn't enough, two Hawaiian newspapers carried announcements of Obama's birth in August 1961. (Read the Honolulu Advertiser's item from Aug. 13, 1961, nine days after Obama's birth, here.) The traditional joke that Birther debunkers make is that his grandparents must have placed those announcements because they knew that he'd want to run for president nearly five decades later. The truth, though, is that the notices are even stronger pieces of evidence than that. Obama's family didn't place them-- Hawaii did, as it does for all births. The announcements were based on official records sent to the papers by the state's Department of Health.

Myth 2: Obama can't be president because his father was a British citizen

Some of the Birthers-- like de facto leader Orly Taitz-- believe that Obama wouldn't be eligible for the presidency even if he were born in the U.S. That's because, in their infinite wisdom, the Founding Fathers included in the Constitution a fair amount of phrases they never really bothered to define. One of those is this explanation of who can be president: "No person except a natural born citizen."

The Supreme Court has never ruled directly on the question of what "natural born citizen" means. So the Birthers have simply settled on their own definition-- someone born to two citizen parents-- and found a source,"The Law of Nations," a 1758 book by the Swiss philosopher Emerich de Vattel, to back them up.

There are a couple of problems with this. Most important, Obama isn't the first president with a non-citizen parent: Chester A. Arthur, the 21st president, was. His father was from Ireland and apparently did not become a U.S. citizen until more than 10 years after the future president's birth.

Plus, even if the Founding Fathers did rely on Vattel as much as the Birthers say-- always a dubious proposition-- Swiss philosophy books aren't legal precedent in the United States. British common law is. And in 1898, in the case of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court looked into the meaning of "natural born" in the common law and concluded that a non-citizen's mere presence in the U.S. is enough to make their child, if born here, a natural-born citizen.

Myth 3: A Kenyan birth certificate for Obama, showing he was born in Mombasa, has been discovered

It's a hoax. Once Taitz released the document, purportedly a certified copy of a Kenyan birth certificate, it took less than two days for Internet sleuths to prove that it had been forged.

The first signs were a couple of small but revealing errors: The certification is dated Feb. 17, 1964, when newly independent Kenya was known as the Dominion of Kenya. It wouldn't start calling itself the Republic of Kenya until December of that year-- but the document refers to the republic. Additionally, the document's header refers to "Coast Province," but as two British professors who are experts in Kenyan history pointed out to Salon, at the time the certificate was supposedly produced, the country's provinces were referred to as regions.

For the final nail in this myth's coffin, one particularly enterprising man, Steve Eddy, located the original Australian document on which the Kenyan certificate was apparently based. The two documents share several identical numbers, including the page and the book of records in which they can be found, and minor changes were made to the names of the registrars responsible for the Australian copy. Taitz claims the Australian certificate "was created to try to discredit my efforts" but it was in fact available on the Internet as far back as 2007.

Myth 4: Obama's grandmother said he was born in Kenya

There's a kernel of truth to this one. In an interview with a street preacher named Ron McRae, Sarah Obama, the second wife of the president's grandfather, did say she was there, in Kenya, for her grandson's birth.

Unfortunately for the Birthers, it was the result of a miscommunication-- or perhaps a mistranslation-- and as soon as McRae started pressing the issue, Obama's family realized what had happened and corrected him. Most Birthers simply ignore the corrections, excising them from audio and transcripts of the conversation posted online. McRae just believes it's part of the conspiracy and that Obama's younger relatives were coached to hide the truth.
The full audio can be downloaded here.

Myth 5: Hawaii allows parents to get birth certificates for their foreign-born children

This one is actually true-- just not in the way the Birthers think. Here's their position, as outlined by World Net Daily, a conservative news site that's become the unofficial Birther Web headquarters: "The 'Certification of Live Birth' posted online and widely touted as 'Obama's birth certificate' does not in any way prove he was born in Hawaii, since the same 'short-form' document is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii."

Children not born in Hawaii can get a birth document from the state. But it won't say they were born in Hawaii, as Obama's does.

"If you were born in Bali, for example, you could get a certificate from the state of Hawaii saying you were born in Bali," Janice Okubo, the director of communications for the state Department of Health, told the Washington Independent's David Weigel recently. "You could not get a certificate saying you were born in Honolulu. The state has to verify a fact like that for it to appear on the certificate."

Myth 6: Obama traveled to Pakistan using an Indonesian passport

When the Birthers tire of arguing that Obama wasn't born in the U.S., they take another tack. At some point during the time he spent in Indonesia growing up, they say, Obama must have taken Indonesian citizenship or renounced his American citizenship or both. As proof, they cite the trip he took to Pakistan in 1981 with a friend from college, and say the U.S. government had issued a ban on travel by its citizens to the country.

Thing is, there was no travel ban. "We have no record of any travel ban between America and Pakistan during that period or since," a State Department spokesman told Weigel. And FactCheck.org's Brooks Jackson notes that the New York Times printed an article about travel to Pakistan on June 14, 1981, which said Americans just needed a visa to travel there. Two months later, the U.S. consul general in Lahore, Pakistan, wrote to the Times to say he'd "welcome an influx of Americans."

Myth 7: Obama hasn't released his birth certificate

Here, we'll admit, Uncle Floyd has a point-- at least a limited one. Strictly speaking, what Obama's campaign released wasn't called a birth certificate; it's a certification of live birth. But there's no functional difference between the two: Ask Hawaii for your birth certificate, and you'll get the certification of live birth back.

"Our Certificate of Live Birth is the standard form, which was modeled after national standards that are acceptable by federal agencies and organizations," Okubo told the Honolulu Advertiser. "With that form, you can get your passport or your soccer registration or your driver's license."

There's been some confusion about whether the original even still exists, but that's now been cleared up. Okubo told the Advertiser that in 2001 the state's paper documents were put into an electronic form, but "any paper data prior to that still exists ... we have backups for all of our backups."

Myth 8:  If Obama would just release his birth certificate, he could end all this

So why hasn't the state of Hawaii released the original paper document? By law, the state can't release Obama's birth records without his OK. State law says that the document can only be released to or "inspect[ed]" by someone with a "direct and tangible" interest. (Though, again, except for "permit[ting] inspection," the law refers to the release of copies and certified copies, not the original record.)

But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Obama could get the original paper document out of its undisclosed Hawaiian location and show it to reporters. Shouldn't he? Maybe not. He's already released a completely legal form of proof of his birthplace; to cave in to the Birthers' demands now would legitimize them. It would also likely lead to a wave of stories asking why the change in stance had happened, and what had taken so long.

The truth is that it was the original release of the certification of live birth that kicked off the Birther movement to begin with. And some of its leaders wouldn't cease their quest even if they were given the original birth certificate-- along with a video showing Obama being born, lei already around his neck.
Conspiracy theorists cling to their theories in the face of all evidence, and in this case the groundwork for disputing an original birth certificate has already been laid. In October of 2008, Rush Limbaugh suggested that Obama's trip to Hawaii to see his dying grandmother might really have been made in order to do some quick forgery. Limbaugh's fellow talk radio host Michael Savage jumped on that bandwagon, too.

Plus, the Birthers have a long list of other demands. Here's one sent out by Gary Kreep, who's representing Alan Keyes in his lawsuit challenging Obama's eligibility. Read it, and abandon all hope:
• Actual long-form birth certificate (NOT an easily-forged electronic copy of a short-form document that is not even officially accepted in Hawaii)
• Passport files
• University of Chicago Law School scholarly articles
• Harvard Law Review articles
• Harvard Law School records
• Columbia University records
• Columbia University senior thesis, "Soviet Nuclear Disarmament"
• Occidental College records, including financial aid that he may have received
• Punahou School records, where Mr. Obama attended from the fifth grade until he finished high school
• Noelani Elementary School records, where Barack Obama attended kindergarten (according to the Hawaii Department of Education, students must submit a birth certificate to register -- but parents may bring a passport or student visa if the child is from a foreign country)
• Complete files and schedules of his years as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004
• Obama's client list from during his time in private practice with the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallard
• Illinois State Bar Association records
• Baptism records
• Obama/Dunham marriage license
• Obama/Dunham divorce documents
• Soetoro/Dunham marriage license
• Soetero/Dunham adoption records 

One of Charles Pierce's most salient points in Idiot America is that to far too many idiots it doesn't matter if something is objectively true or not; what matters is what people believe-- like in the case of fundamentalists being positive that men and dinosaurs co-existed because otherwise the Buy Bull might not be able to be taken literally. Result: jerks who think evolution and Intelligent Design should both be taught in science classes. In fact, if Claire McCaskill decides to tackle this one, she doesn't even have to cross the aisle. All she needs to do is ring up the Senate's stupidest Democrat, Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Watch:

Not Even One Single Republican House Member-- Not Even Nutcase John Campbell-- Backed Lou Dobbs' Psychotic Insistence That Obama Wasn't Born In The US

Birther John Campbell hid under his desk rather than vote today

Hawaii Democrat Neil Abercrombie introduced H.R. 593 "recognizing and celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the entry of Hawaii into the Union as the 50th State," and proudly proclaiming that Barack Obama was born there. Although emarrassing birther fanatic Michele Bachmann tried a parliamentary maneuver to delay a vote on an issue that is helping many Americans understand the toxicity and wholesale derangement of the Republican Party, in the end every single Republican in the House joined all the Democrats to pass it 378-0. Even Bachmann voted yes.

One birther kook-- and only one-- fled from the Chamber to avoid voting: John Bayard Taylor Campbell III, a lunatic fringe wingnut from Thousand Oaks (quite far from his Orange County district). Campbell was one of the sponsors of the "Birthright Citizenship Act," which would require presidential candidates to disclose birth certificates. He avoided voting on the Hawaiian legislation at 6:56PM but managed to vote for the Waco Mammoth National Monument Establishment Act at 7:03PM. It must have been difficult for these Republicans to leave CNN's in house racist Lou Dobbs out to dry. But they are fully aware that there case has no legs whatsoever. It's just part of the partisan game they play and more definitive proof that the rightists would rather see America fail than Obama succeed.

Campbell, a former used car salesman and a member of the House Financial Services Committee, is widely considered one of the most corrupt of the younger members of Congress. Lobbyists and corporate CEOs have reason to believe that Campbell will vote for any special interest that will pay him enough money. He's been a 100% in the pocket supporter of the worst of the banksters and Wall Street crooks and in return he's pocketed $863,386 (in just two terms!)

These interviews with Republican loons were done before they all voted for the Hawaii resolution asserting that Obama was born in Hawaii. (The imbecile hiding and making believe he was looking at pens for 20 minutes to avoid the interviewer is Pennsylvania freak Tim Murphy.)