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Why Birtherism Is Here To Stay
Townhall.com ^ | May 1, 2011 | Steve Chapman

Posted on 05/01/2011 5:57:08 AM PDT by Kaslin

On Oct. 22, 1844, thousands of followers of American evangelist William Miller woke up expecting Jesus Christ to make his triumphant return that day, as they had been told. That night, they went to bed, surprised and disappointed. But Miller's movement endured.

It was too much to expect that birthers, presented with President Barack Obama's birth certificate, would say: "What surprising and wonderful news! We'll have to reassess our entire opinion of him." When it comes to matters of blind faith, cherished beliefs have a way of overriding facts.

There has never been a shred of persuasive evidence that Obama was born anywhere but Hawaii. But thanks to rampant paranoia and widespread credulity, the myth of his foreign origins gained currency among many people who should know better.

A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that 25 percent of Americans, including 45 percent of Republicans, do not believe Obama was born in America. A poll taken after the release of his birth certificate showed 18 percent of those who have seen it still aren't convinced.

Something about this president impels many people to accept anything that is said about him, as long as it's unfavorable. Twelve percent of Americans think he's a Muslim. Plenty of others believe things contradicted by his first two years in office -- that he's a radical leftist, an anti-gun fanatic, a disciple of world government and Darth Vader's delinquent nephew.

They even believe he's an inarticulate dunce who got into Ivy League schools only because of affirmative action and can't utter an intelligible sentence without a teleprompter. Never mind that he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and taught at another premier university, the University of Chicago.

(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: birther; certifigate; enoughalready; naturalborncitizen; stoptheinsanity
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To: little jeremiah
Wrong. They hold equal weight.

Not when determining NATURAL born citizenship, they're not.

61 posted on 05/01/2011 4:12:54 PM PDT by MamaTexan (I am a Person as created by the Law of Nature, not a person as created by the laws of Man)
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To: MamaTexan

Did you even read the link I posted? If not, then you are obstinate.

If you don’t take the time to read it, and then discuss why you disagree (if you do, which would be very difficult), then you are clinging to a belief that is irrational and not founded on anything other than your beliefs.

http://www.freerepublic.com/~rxsid/


62 posted on 05/01/2011 4:28:58 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: SomeCallMeTim

To: Kaslin
So.... Obama is NOT a radical leftist??

I think, perhaps... this writer is suffering from the same delusions he describes

So meybe he is just on the payroll and is trying to earn it


63 posted on 05/01/2011 4:29:33 PM PDT by munin (Enki did it,)
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To: little jeremiah

I don’t see any excellence in that page. It’s not cohesive and in scanning it appears to be mostly irrelavant.


64 posted on 05/01/2011 4:30:50 PM PDT by libertylover (The problem with Obama is not that his skin is too black, it's that his ideas are too RED.)
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To: SomeCallMeTim

I think, perhaps... this writer is suffering from the same delusions he describes.

Guess I sent the previous post to the wrong place, but this guy is probably on the payroll and is trying to earn his keep, I think there are a number of posters here that is on the payroll of the liberal left


65 posted on 05/01/2011 4:33:48 PM PDT by munin (Enki did it,)
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To: libertylover

You must not have tried very hard to read it.


66 posted on 05/01/2011 4:36:02 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: Kaslin

There has never been a shred of persuasive evidence that Obama was born anywhere but Hawaii.

************

This remark gets the burden of proof wrong. Obama has to show that he is Constitutionally qualified for office. The rest of us don’t have to prove where he was not born.


67 posted on 05/01/2011 4:40:34 PM PDT by Socon-Econ (Socon-Econ)
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To: MamaTexan
An American citizen and a British subject...and the 'evidence' is everywhere.

Thank you for a straightforward reply.

68 posted on 05/01/2011 4:41:33 PM PDT by libertylover (The problem with Obama is not that his skin is too black, it's that his ideas are too RED.)
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To: Texas Eagle

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)

LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

69 posted on 05/01/2011 4:52:41 PM PDT by LonePalm (Commander and Chef)
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To: Mr Rogers

I’m out of touch, until I read this thread I didn’t have a clue that he was Darth Vader’s nephew, he sneaked that one right past me.


70 posted on 05/01/2011 5:58:05 PM PDT by RipSawyer (Trying to reason with a liberal is like teaching algebra to a tomcat.)
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To: little jeremiah
Did you even read the link I posted? If not, then you are obstinate.

Oh, good grief.

I've reviewed your posts, and you ALWAYS say 'see rxisd's research', but I am seriously beginning to doubt if YOU have the capacity to comprehend it.

Fight your own battles, Bud. Articulate your OWN objections.

I KNOW Vattel's Law of Nations, I've read it myself... and there is nothing in the link you posted that contradicts what I said.

71 posted on 05/01/2011 6:13:10 PM PDT by MamaTexan (I am ~Person~ as created by the Law of Nature, not a 'person' as created by the laws of Man)
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To: Conscience of a Conservative

Why Is Getting Obama To Disclose His Legal Clients Like Pulling Teeth?

July 9, 2008 1:02 P.M. By Jim Geraghty
Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Fred Thompson, Hillary Clinton, Horserace, Joe Biden, John Edwards, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin, Something Lighter, Tommy Thompson

Barack Obama has made some strange decisions regarding secrecy and records. His state legislative records are missing and may have been thrown out, there are questions about his answers to his application to the state bar (keep in mind the DSCC demanded George Allen release his in 2006), and he released a one-page letter from his doctor summarizing his medical history (contrasted with McCain allowing reporters to examine nearly 1,200 pages of health records). He and his former law firm say Obama only did a few hours of work for nonprofit firms connected to convicted donor Tony Rezko, but no records have been released to confirm that. (A Huffington Post blogger claims those records were released, but the link she cites doesn’t work.)

And The New York Times noted,

The campaign on Monday barred cameras from a large gathering of African-American civic leaders Mr. Obama attended. It recently refused to provide names of religious figures with whom Mr. Obama met in Chicago and directed some of them to avoid reporters by using a special exit.

But among the strangest is Obama’s refusal to specify who he worked for during his time in private practice with the firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallard (now known by only the last three names). In all of his statements of economic interests filed with the Illinois State government during his years as a state legislator, Obama listed every client of the firm. The result was a “disclosure” of hundreds of clients each year – from 247 in his 1997 filing to 448 in his 2002 filing – when he was only working for a handful of those.

Obama’s old boss, Judson Miner, said there were 30 cases to which Obama contributed in some way during his time there, full time for three years and seven years “of counsel.” How many clients could he have represented in those 30 cases over 10 years?

When the Chicago Sun-Times asked for a specific list of his clients in 2007, Robert Gibbs, communications director for the senator’s presidential campaign, responded, “The rules of professional responsibility binding on the firm precludes its public dissemination of client-confidential information, including the fact of representation. If there are specific questions about specific representations, we will attempt to answer them with the assistance of the firm.”

That sounds very authoritative, but it’s also wrong. Attorney-client privilege covers the fact of representation only in extremely rare cases.

Beyond numerous citations of this, in 1996, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois*, which has jurisdiction over Chicago, ruled in Stopka vs. Alliance of American Insurers:

Fox & Grove’s general assertion that the billing statements and time records should not be disclosed because they are privileged is unpersuasive. Cohen and Pincus attest the billing statements and attorney time sheets maintained by the law firm “would reveal the Alliance’s motivation for seeking legal counsel and would reveal the nature of services provided by Fox and Grove to the Alliance in both this case and other matters.” Cohen Aff. ¶ 3; Pincus Aff. ¶ 3. “A client’s motive for seeking legal advice is undeniably a confidential communication.” Matter of Grand Jury Proceeding, Cherney, 898 F.2d 565, 568 (7th Cir. 1990); In re Grand Jury Witness, 695 F.2d at 362. Accordingly, the substance of those meetings is privileged. However, billing statements and time records are not privileged insofar as they state when, where and for how long Fox & Grove attorneys met with Stopka or other Alliance officials.”

It’s hard to argue that the fact of representation is covered by attorney-client privilege, but the billing records aren’t. And fact of representation is exactly what the Sun-Times and other media organizations are asking for, not any legally sensitive material of any of Obama’s discussions with them.

And indeed, the Obama campaign is willing to confirm Obama’s participation in a case when the media brings the client to their attention — suing on behalf of ACORN, a 1994 lawsuit against Citibank, a trader who reported his bosses for fraud, a psychologist fired by Cook County, etc. But they’ve turned the simple question of “who did Obama work for?” into a guessing game – they’ll only confirm or deny representation for that list of hundreds of firm clients.

Why?

* This post originally referred the 7th District Court as a whole, not the Northern Illinois District.

UPDATE: A reader who is an Illinois lawyer asks if the Obama campaign is citing the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct. But while the rules prohibit disclosing “a confidence or secret of the client,” I don’t see anything that would cover the fact of representation. Note that the client’s hiring of the firm is already disclosed in his statements of economic interests Obama files because he served in the state legislature; the question is, which clients did Obama actually do work for?

Are we to believe that every client of Obama’s asked that he keep his work for them secret?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Another Northern District of Illinois case dealing with disclosing billing records, from a few years earlier:

“In their opposition brief, plaintiffs list six categories of documents they claim to be privileged. Category I consists of billing statements for legal services rendered on behalf of KRS by various attorneys, including a description of the type of service provided, the cost of such services, and the checks paying for such services. Such communications do not relate to confidential matters and are clearly unprivileged.” Schachar v. American Academy of Ophthalmology, 106 F.R.D. 187 at 192 (N.D. Ill. 1986)

Recall Gibbs’ statement, “The rules of professional responsibility binding on the firm precludes its public dissemination of client-confidential information, including the fact of representation.” Too bad this ruling indicates that the billing statements are not confidential or privileged, much less the fact of representation.

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/9328/why-getting-obama-disclose-his-legal-clients-pulling-teeth


72 posted on 05/01/2011 9:12:08 PM PDT by Candor7 (Obama . fascist info..http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html)
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To: MamaTexan

Do you a bad tooth ache or something.


73 posted on 05/01/2011 10:16:54 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: Kaslin

“...... Never mind that he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and taught at another premier university, the University of Chicago......”

Really? No one has seen his college transcripts.....


74 posted on 05/01/2011 10:33:23 PM PDT by Reddy (B.O. stinks)
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To: little jeremiah
It’s very obviously both: born on the US soil to parents who are themselves citizens.

Tell it to John Roberts, who swore the man in twice.

75 posted on 05/01/2011 10:39:32 PM PDT by cynwoody
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To: Kaslin

Fact is that most of his class was magnum cum laude. No one claims he was summa cum laude which would be the highest honor.

I don’t doubt his intelligence. Just his depth of scholarship. Compare his speeches with those of Woodrow Wilson,for instance. My impression is that he is more like Jack Kennedy, a man of charm and intelligence, but no intellectual.


76 posted on 05/01/2011 11:57:12 PM PDT by RobbyS (Pray with the suffering souls.)
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To: Kaslin
No one has seen his real birth certificate yet but rather some kind of manufactured supposed facsimile.
77 posted on 05/02/2011 3:22:52 AM PDT by Bellflower (Isa 32:5 The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said [to be] bountiful.)
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To: little jeremiah
Do you a bad tooth ache or something.

No, but people who post insults and then refuse to defend their assertions do give me a pain in the ass.

78 posted on 05/02/2011 5:17:22 AM PDT by MamaTexan (I am ~Person~ as created by the Law of Nature, not a 'person' as created by the laws of Man)
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To: Kaslin
Number of Harvard and Columbia graduates who remember Obama graduating: zero.
79 posted on 05/02/2011 8:31:24 AM PDT by pabianice
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