global_jd

Bad day for America

I've just regained (limited) Internet in the PRC, and have a bunch of experiences to type up, but this one seems to trump them all... looks like Federal Judge David Carter of Santa Ana has folded in requests for the Obama machine to produce even the most basic documentation of his citizenship, his eligibility.

The link goes to a self-proclaimed "conservative" site called 24ahead.com... he has had the most reasonable writing on this particular subject that I've seen over the past few months. I've got no evaluation (or even knowledge) of his other positions. I linked to him because corporate news sources, including Fox and even indie bloggers like Little Green Footballs, have been distorting the facts and smearing the questioners of the legitimacy of the current ruling structure. 24ahead has been dealing with the actual issues.

The issues themselves are simple. Someone asked Obama/Soetoro for his birth certificate. In October of 2009, just before the election, ObamaCo filed for dismissal of the request. They have done so dozens of times since, in multiple courts across the country.

Doesn't matter if the original questioner was a nutcase. Doesn't matter. The fact is that the mob filed for dismissal. That's not openness. That signals something to hide.

There are many answers ObamaCo could have given. Filing for dismissal is the wrong answer. It is the wrong answer.

The followup dialog remained ambiguous, but confirmed the pattern... they attacked the questioners, misrepresented the controversy as only about the birth certificate. I don't know what kind of hell Orly Taitz has been going through. I don't know what kind of pressure they put on Judge Carter. I do know how Betsy Wright's Bimbo Squad employed Pellicano and Paladino to threaten women who were attacked by The Man. I do know that the Obama Eligibility facts have been consistently been misrepresented, the real news has consistently been ignored, and any who doubt The Faith have been personally attacked with prejudicial terms like "birthers" or worse.

If you want a federal job, you've got to show your records. If some cipher from Chicago wants The Big Job, he damn well better show his basic birth location & doctor, elementary school records, passport history, whether he has applied for aid as a foreign student, and all the other normal documentation The Machine has carefully squirrelled away. He should show them whether or not he's asked. But if asked, it's despicable for them to attack those who request such basic and expected openness and transparency.

He needs to answer the questions about why the only school record we have lists him as an Indonesian citizen. He needs to forthrightly discuss his own website's admission of British and Kenyan citizenship. He needs to provide a good explanation of why he's the only recent presidential candidate without a public Grade Point Average. He needs to stop with the personal attacks, and just answer the questions.

He needs to answer why his law school admissions did not list his alternate names. He needs to clear up the confusion on his Social Security Numbers and Draft Card numbers. He needs to document his travel to Pakistan, his entire passport history. He needs to clear up why his campaign removed the AVS check on credit card donations. He needs to answer. He needs to actually be open, instead of just spouting off about how open he is, and how closed you are.

It was the filing for dismissal which was the smoking gun. Previously you could argue that his citizenship history had been hidden simply through innocent negligence. But filing for dismissal  -- stonewalling -- is the key intentional action which would normally trigger the antibodies of an objective press.

The reluctance to reply indicates he is ineligible, and his administration is fraudulent. The timidity of Republicans to acknowledge these basic questions implies the mob has nuclear dirt on them. The failure of the press indicates that they are part of the same corrupt machine. The lockstep of the citizenry indictes a fraudulent society.

It's a bad, bad day, in Saul Alinsky's Amerikka, when a cat may no longer look at a king.

Where I stand, Jan 19 09

I haven't hit the news yet this evening for any late changes, but it looks like Obama will be inaugurated tomorrow.

I've got great cognitive dissonance -- if a taxpayer asked him to substantiate his eligibility through his citizenship records, and he not only refused, but repeatedly went to court to resist such requests, and all without explanation -- then that indicates a high probability he is an ineligible candidate, a fraud. A fraudulent administration will be issuing commands. Not proven, but likely, by his actions.

I don't see much I can do about it. There's a lot of buy-in out there. Even the simplest and most reasonable requests have been met by misrepresentation and namecalling. My current plan is to speak the truth when asked, but not to point out the obvious uninvited. It'll be painful, but that seems the best path.

"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" comes to mind. Other people are more attached to things than I am... penalties on the productive will convince them, eventually.

The short-term costs won't matter as much as some of the understructure being laid, though. These days I don't care much about Clinton's marginal tax rate. I remember him more today for Jamie Gorelick erecting the "wall" between CIA and FBI that let 9/11 happen, or technology sales to Chinese military for campaign cash, or even Sandy Berger's eventually-successful whitewashing of history. Clinton did short-term evil, but his long-term work was more significant, more resistant to feedback.

Even Carter... his mandates of unreasonable lending led directly to today's loan collapses. Even after we know what he did in the past to Taiwan, Israel, the mideast, energy and the like, Carter's bad architectural choices continue to cause new problems today.

Anyway, the current regime will do bad things. I'm resigned to it. One thing that helps is the odd saying "Even Democrats are part of God's Plan". I don't usually talk like that, except in a Crowleyan way, but it points out that the scale of the coming evolutionary changes is greater than that of any faction of players, and... if I ever happened to speak that phrase among people, then a few of the more orthodox leftists I know would sputter and freak. So it's a nice odd phrase, keeps me centered. ;-)

(Parenthetically, I realized this afternoon that lots of people will be glad the two-minute-hates have ended... it's been a drag for the public to read what media outlets say about Bush, and they don't want to hear it about Obama... lots of people are saying "i'm glad the last eight years are over, anything for a change". I'm sure we'll line up for similar two-minute-hates in the future; the tactic has proven itself, only the targets will change. The relief won't last.)

So that's where I'm at. I hope the Supreme Court takes up the Lightfoot case and initiates a reasonable discussion. Not counting on it, though. I'm not planning any active resistance, will still pay whatever taxes they want, and strive to comply with the behavior-modification laws. They don't have my consent, though. There's been a lot of bad stuff before, but refusing to establish your citizenship when requested by an employer... that's out there.

Tomorrow, I'll be wearing black.

Understanding the inability to see non-transparency

The issue of Obama's refusal to disclose his citizenship history is finally drawing mainstream attention, but the story has been amazingly distorted. The discrepancy is sharp.

McCain's citizenship is simple... although he was born on a military base in Panama, Senate Resolution 511 (April 2008) has already established his birth as a "natural citizen". OpenCongress.org has a summary of SR-511, and lists blogs which discuss it. He released his actual birth certificate as a matter of course, and there has been no evidence of changes in nationality over the years.

The "McCain was born in Panama" line comes up in many, many comment threads though. No clear identity to the commenters. Serves to diffuse the discussion. Also serves to give True Believers an out, so that they can keep Believing without excessive cognitive dissonance.

Who are the Spinners who insert "panama" on online discussions? I suspect it varies -- some Axelrod contacts, but some freelancers too. It seems unlikely that all of them would be honestly ignorant that their argument could only fool the rubes... I suspect some who write "but mccain was born in panama!" are knowingly deceptive. Hard to tell in each case, though.

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But the issue of Obama's refusal to establish his eligibility for the office... that's a complicated one, lots of little angles, lots of novel attempts to reality-hack.

Some things particularly surprised me: the final forced jump into AP/UPI news, but with the headline "HI says he was born there"... big questioning bloggers like Glenn Reynolds and Charles Johnson dismissing the story... the behavior of some of the principals among the questioners. And now I'm wondering what scenarios come next. There's a lot to think about here.

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First, the Hawaii Reporter has the statement issued by Hawaii's Health Director, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, which I copied in full below:

State Can't Legally Release Barack Obama's Birth Certificate, But State Health Department Verifies The Original is On File
By Dr. Chiyome Fukino, 10/31/2008 5:28:13 PM

There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawai‘i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.

Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.

No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii.

Dr. Chiyome Fukino is the director of the Hawaii Department of Health

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.. and here's how the Associated Press reported it:

State declares Obama birth certificate genuine

HONOLULU (AP) — State officials say there's no doubt Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Friday she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Fukino says that no state official, including Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, ever instructed that Obama's certificate be handled differently.

She says state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest.

Some Obama critics claim he was not born in the US.

Earlier Friday, a southwest Ohio magistrate rejected a challenge to Obama's citizenship. Judges in Seattle and Philadelphia recently dismissed similar suits.

That "State officials say there's no doubt" lead line got the most reprints and exposure. That was the take-away. But Fukino just said that she saw the original 1961 document, and released no details about its content. Hawaii does issue out-of-state birth certificates... seems neither Stanley Anne nor Barack Sr. met the residency requirements, but there didn't seem to be much checking either.

Read Dr. Fukino's words again. She says she saw the candidate's 1961 document, but has not received special instructions for it. She is very careful to say little else.

And look how far the Associated Press took it. Then look at how the blogosphere took it, calling those with real questions "idiots".

They maintain a strong offense, playing for Nov 4.

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In what situations would any campaign have failed -- even refused -- to establish citizenship by this point? The campaign's motions for dismissal are the most salient fact in all this.

They're sending legal teams to each of the citizenship challenges... here's one from Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Oct 31:

Counsel for Obama and the DNC had argued earlier today that the emergency motion should be denied because (1) it stated "effectively a new original case" than what had been included in his complaint, (2) Berg failed to comply with a rules which require him to "move first in the district court for any order granting an injunction while an appeal is pending," and (3) because his claims were "patently false" and he could not prevail if the case were heard on the merits.

It's much simpler to just release the documentation, answer the questions. Instead... look at how they reply. That tells me more than all the little details do.

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Bloggers? Strange. Charles Johnson picked up on a rewrite of the AP story, and added "Will this put a stop to the idiotic rumors? Of course not!" Glenn Reynolds echo'd it, without original commentary.

I remember both these guys being pretty on-top of the questions actually raised by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (although my memory could be off). But these guys aren't asking "Why is the Obama campaign refusing to release basic qualifying documentation?" this time. They ignored it, then seemed to ridicule it.

It might be because they were following the "obama early years" story back in June, when school records showed him as an Indonesian Muslim. Back then the "muslim" issue was the focal point, and this was more an issue of electability than eligibility. Possibly Johnson & Reynolds attended to it then, and have since tuned it out. Seems strange, though.

Andy Martin and Phillip Berg aren't bloggers per se, but they've played a big role in the story. I can't get a good read on either of them. Martin seems like a self-promoter, and Berg was associated both with Hillary and with the Truthers. Their court work hasn't been effective, but they've both drawn attention to the issue. But both mix up the solid issues with distracting incidentals. I can't get a good read on them.

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The campaign? Still telling acolytes to believe the COLB is the BC. (If that is so, why are the lawyers in half-a-dozen courthouses, filing to dismiss claims to release the BC?) Fans are being played for patsies.

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There's a canny angle in all this. Who *does* have "legal standing" to require a presidential candidate to establish his required qualifications for the office? From all the commentary I've read, nobody else really knows either. The most persuasive case I've seen says that Congress is culpable, as is everyone else who has taken an oath to "uphold the Constitution". (I don't think that'll fly. ;-)

I'm wondering whether the Clinton campaign realized this "lack of standing" issue back in June. But even if they couldn't press it in court, I'm still puzzled why they didn't bring it out through other means. There must have been discussions at some level about Obama's questionable past and his refusal to provide normal disclosure. But the Clinton campaign is still hard for me to read.

If Obama is proclaimed as the winner, then at that point will the RNC have legal standing to sue? It looks to me like they'd then have demonstrated a clear injury.

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Bottom line:

1. The Obama campaign has shut all its records, and has refused court orders of discovery on such public basics as birth certificates and passports. It doesn't seem like any campaign would afford the negative publicity of court refusals, but this campaign has. This is the most significant fact in the whole debate.
2. McCain hasn't taken advantage of it. I don't know what they know, but I also don't have much faith in McCain or the RNC.
3. Clinton didn't press it. And she has killer instinct. I can generate hypotheses, but cannot choose among them.
4. Corporate media didn't ask the questions, and then misreported the answers... bankruptcy on multiple levels.
5. David Axelrod has established tactical savvy within the blogosphere.

If Obama is proclaimed the loser, there will be riots. If Obama is proclaimed the winner, then it's messy -- I can't tell whether his eligibility will then be challenged, and if so, whether the challenge will succeed.

I have a very strong gut feeling that the principals already have plans for these contingencies. They're just not speaking yet.

Organizational oddities

Lots of weird stuff this election, for those of us who look at how organizations communicate, react.

The "obama birth certificate" issue has fascinated me the past two weeks, since I first learned that campaign lawyers filed for dismissal in the Pennsylvania case, and then particularly after they ignored the 30-day discovery period. Some recent thoughts:

• There are very likely teams of lawyers and strategists already working on the contingencies in both campaigns. Probably independent teams in DNC and RNC too. I don't know which branches of government are involved, but I think it's unlikely that there are not teams already researching the issue. News service staffs must be having internal conversations by now. Bottom line: I'm betting many organizations already have groups preparing for this "as if" it is real.
• The lawyers did not consider the websites' COLB as being worthy of submission. Yet fightthesmears.com and factcheck.org both continue to urge people to point to the old, disounted pages as "proof of Obama's citizenship". There's a distinct break in awareness between campaign insiders and campaign outsiders.
• In 2004 the big media companies ignored the Swift Boat Vets' "what's a silver star with v-for-valor?" for about three weeks, before launching the successful "it was all debunked long ago" campaign on the same day as the DNC. But that was earlier in the election cycle, and would not work as well on this late curiosity about the reluctance to establish basic eligibility. Different dynamics, hard to say how they'll play it.

Two other issues arose this week, each of which is also a "wtf could that organization be thinking" situation:

Website credit-card validation: Washington Post has a roundup. The campaign website apparently disabled standard anti-fraud checks on donations, such as checking that the name matches the cardholder. The story broke last week, and made it to mainstream Obama-friendly papers this week.

I can see a rogue worker in an organization making a bad decision. But I cannot understand how an organization cannot deal with it in a timely manner. Even today, the Post quotes an Obama staffer as emphasizing that they cut out all fraud at the back end, even as bloggers uncover individuals who have had their names impersonated, in excess of donation limits. Another Obama campaigner then said the McCain campaign did the same thing, which was not borne out in subsequent Post investigation.

The shocking thing here is not the original credit-card fraud, but the response to it. Instead of owning up to a mistake, they do not react, and then attempt to deflect.

Khalid video: Obama was apparently at an Islamic dinner with speakers who threatened Israel. He was alleged to have made some incendiary comments in reply.

This case is a little different, because of the shorter timeframe. But Obama has not addressed the issue, and the Los Angeles Times has provided a series of reasons for why they will not release the tape.

The normal tactic would be to come clean, to provide transparency, and to defuse the issue. But the campaign (and their allies) has continued with a stonewalling approach.

In all three issues, the common theme is to underestimate a potential risk, and to not respond to it in a timely and effective fashion.

I'd bet that, in each issue, there are different camps within the campaign, urging different types of responses.

A strong, resilient organization would respond at a variety of scales, in a variety of timeframes. But here, the response seems to be waiting for a central decision, and the margins of the organization are silent, waiting for leadership.

It's all quite strange.

San Francisco riots

I suspect they're coming. Look at how people are being set up (SF Chronicle, Wed Oct 22):

The Net fringe remains rife with rumors questioning Obama's status as a "natural-born American citizen," charging that he may be, as a result, ineligible to run for president. Although those accusations were long ago proved groundless, they do provoke questions fundamental to our democracy: What does it mean to "be American," and who deserves the right to that franchise?

The "long ago proved groundless" part... arrant lies, as anyone with a web browser can affirm. But it worked against Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.

Anyway, SF Robots who program themselves with The Chron now tell their friends that "these rumors were proved groundless long ago". They are out-of-touch.

Meanwhile, this place called The Stranger also came up in Google News, and it prepares the Robots for how they may later be instructed to act... takes an ironical tone in attempting to grade several scenarios for "how the reds will steal the election", but the underlying meme of the article "it's not whether they will steal the election, but how, so be prepared".

(If you don't understand that last conclusion, think of the phrase "Don't think of a white polar bear in the corner of the room." You cannot evaluate the verbal programming without forming mental constructs, which then form emotional constructs, possibilities, habits, and so on. More in the writings of Milton H. Erickson, MD, of Phoenix Arizona... websearches just show bookstores, rather than information, but Wikipedia currently has a good section.)

Anyway, those sophisticates who can only afford low research costs are being blatantly lied to, and are then being prepared to revolt against possible "theft" by "those people". I don't know how the US presidential election will turn out, but I do know that many good people are being lied to, and are believing it, and feel social pressure to believe it. And they'll hurt others.  That's messed up.

Let's burn the UN down

Remarkable, historically tragic document: "Condemning ‘offensively anti-Islamic’ video, Ban Ki-moon appeals for calm":

28 March 2008 – Secretary-General today led a chorus of United Nations condemnation of the Internet broadcast of a video made by the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, describing it as “offensively anti-Islamic,” while he also called on those upset by the film to remain calm.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson after last night’s airing of the film, entitled Fitna, Mr. Ban said “there is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free expression is not at stake here.

“I acknowledge the efforts of the Dutch Government to stop the broadcast of this film and appeal for calm to those understandably offended by it. Freedom must always be accompanied by social responsibility.”

I saw the 15-minute video, and it is still available if you hunt in the corners of the net. It makes no judgment of its own, but merely presents audio/text of the koran, and presents the 'hate speech' of some who claim it holy, and presents the effects of these haters on others... impolite 9/11 footage of people jumping to their deaths, beheadings of wailing peacemakers, the bodies of the tortured.

Ban Ki-moon and his organization get it precisely, incredibly, and horrifically wrong: the "hate speech and incitement to violence" is only neutrally documented by this video. If you condemn such thoughts and actions, you must condemn the people depicted by the video, not the video itself. He looks at the finger, not the moon.

The film impartially reports current speech, current actions, and the results of those actions. It leaves the judging to the reader. Banning the report will not make the "hate speech or incitement to violence" go away, much less make the actual violence go away. The video is the finger, and putting the hand in the pocket does not affect the moon.

And that bit about "Freedom must always be accompanied by social responsibility". He should be asked if he really thinks its one-way... if he is really saying that the offended islamists are too subhuman to be held to that same standard.

The way to make reporting such as the Fitna video "go away" is to remove the actual news which the video reports. The United Nations needs to condemn the violence, not those who speak against the violence. When the moon goes behind a cloud, the finger stops pointing.

Why does the United Nations do this? I'm betting they're consciously lying in hopes of mobs committing less violence. Me, I think dropping ordnance on a mob or three is demonstrably more effective. Probably the best way to change the UN speech is to march to the Upper East Side with pitchforks and start tearing their own building down. That's the message they're sending.

This is a particularly shameful moment in the sordid history of the high-living staff at the United Nations. They are saying they respect violence, threats, racism and pre-human hatred, and do not respect the lives of its future victims.

Ban Ki-moon, suppose that was your warm head that we saw Zarqawi holding, suppose that was your cry we heard as your throat was severed. Would you wish us to forget you, and to forget about the next victim, the next hundred victims, of such beasts?

The United Nations is not only ineffective against murder and hatred... not only enables murder and hatred... but it's now even defending murder and hatred from exposure and condemnation.

If I lived in New York City, I'd be bringing a portable video player outside their buildings today. The problem must be exposed.

Iran captures UK sailors

Weird... it got a moderate amount of press, but even in the weblogs I didn't hear this understanding... the sailors were captured as a pre-emptive media story against the 300 Iranian troops and agents being held in Iraq, and the border shootout of last week. The press angle changes from "Iranian incursions" to "trade the troops". It's an effective tactic, but only because we don't recognize and acknowledge it for what it is.

Henry Waxman

Guy consumes oxygen to say:

"The meeting of the committee will come to order. Today the committee is holding a hearing to examine how the White House handles highly classified information. In June and July 2003, one of the nation's most carefully guarded secrets -- the identity of a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson -- was repeatedly revealed by White House officials to members of the media. This was an extraordinarily serious breach of our national security...."

How can this guy live with himself? Maybe he got advanced training from Ted Kennedy. He is clearly out of his freakin' mind.

... No, even a crazy person could not realistically string together three misstatements in a single sentence like that. It's got to be intentional. How can he think he'll get away with deliberate and obvious errors of fact? He's a danger, malandro.

Homegrown creationism

Associated Press covers the case of an Oregon state employee whose beard is too short, because he does not believe the global-warming meme and instead asks questions about it.

First two paragraphs give a flavor of how AP puts things:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Against the vast majority of scientific opinion and even the policy initiatives of Oregon's governor, the weather expert who tracks climate change for Oregon is an increasingly lonely voice.

George Taylor says there are signs of global warming but burning fossil fuels aren't necessarily to blame.

Taylor, who heads the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University, says natural changes have a bigger influence on global temperatures than people do, and the world has been warmer in the past.

... "There are wrinkles that are still being debated," Mote said. "But basically the debate about whether there's a human influence is over."

And:

His opinions conflict not only with many other scientists, but with the state of Oregon's policies.

So the governor wants to take that title from Taylor and make it a position that he would appoint.

E pur, si muove.

Taylor himself fisks one such article here.

Update: Delaware State Climatologist David Legates is apparently also under political pressure to stop asking inconvenient questions and instead, Believe. [via] Something else I didn't pick up from the Associated Press storytelling: "George Taylor was elected twice as President of the American Association of State Climatologists."

People who blindly follow skewed storytellers... how can we work with them?

Sandy Berger, QED

New testimony about why Sandy Berger's private destruction of public documents attracted such curiosity at the time. Bottom line is that the guy took significant personal risks to destroy evidence. (Counter to the press report there, it was the handwritten comments on each of those copies which held the unique value, the reason for the theft, destruction, and dishonesty.)

Any reasonable thinking person can assume from this that the Clinton machine knows that it would be nuked were the record known, and that it leveraged Berger into personal destruction to destroy the public record. Nothing else I've considered makes a tenth the sense.

It's also clear that the Clinton machine has dirt on the Bush organization and related groups, or else they'd break out stuff like Jamie Gorelick's strange placement on the 9/11 commission, the impossibility of Vincent Foster shooting his head in Ft. Marcy Park, and the rest.

We may not know directly what happened, but it's easy to see the indirect effects, and know where the juice flows.