Wednesday, February 29, 2012

BIRTHERS! PUMA! AIEEEEE!!!!

My god. The Birther movement hasn't died. Still. Yet. Even now. This thing has more lives than Christopher-Lee-as-Dracula.

A short while ago, the following popped into my mailbox:
Sheriff Joe Arpaio To Hold News Conference Concerning Obama's Citizenship Questions on Thursday, March 1, at 3p ET.

After months of research, investigation, and harassment, the 'Cold Case Posse' will release their findings at a press conference.
Oh yeah. That's who you want as your spokesperson: The arrogant sheriff in Arizona often reviled as a corrupt, power-mad sadist.

The emailed release continues thus:
It's hard to believe that with an extraordinary amount of evidence (that dwarfs any other recently congressionally investigated issue) our elected officials have refused to look into the issue of constitutional eligibility and the related issues.
"Extraordinary amount of evidence," eh?

Curiosity compelled me to take a brief look at this "evidence," which you can find here. It's a compendium of all the familiar bullshit; although the theme has many variations, the primary argument comes down to the words "natural born citizen." The birthers have come up with a very strained interpretation of that term. Very, very, very strained. We're talking about the kind of straining you might do after eating a big bowl of concrete.

Scrolling down, one notes the following...
In early summer, 2007, the so called “Birther” conspiracy theory was first created by renegade members of an ultra leftist group known as the PUMAs. (That’s right! They were leftists). They were a splinter group of hard-core Hillary Clinton supporters who did not want to surrender the Democrat party nomination to Obama after a hard fought campaign leading to the 2008 Democratic nomination.
Oh man. Man oh man oh man. This is wrong in so many ways...

PUMA began on The Confluence, run by a very good writer who calls herself Riverdaughter. Is she an "ultra-leftist"? Hell, I'm probably (a smidgen) to her left, and I'm the guy who wrote "I like Ike" a couple of posts down. In 2008, most Democrats (incorrectly) presumed Hillary to be more conservative than Obama. In fact, the hyperbolic silly-billies over on Daily Kos spent most of that year talking paranoid nonsense about the "Clinton-Bush crime family."

At heart, the birthers are Birchers. They are the extremists -- not Riverdaughter, not the PUMA-folk who gathered around her, and certainly not me.

Real PUMAs steered clear of birtherism from the very beginning. I spent a lot of time poking holes in some of the early claims of forgery.

Alas, a Republican ratfuck operation infiltrated the PUMA movement and commandeered a large chunk of it. For the most part, the only PUMA-pushers who embraced birtherism were infiltrators -- red wolves in blue sheepskin. You can apply the term "ultra-leftist" to Larry Johnson, HillBuzz and the other pseudo-PUMA ratfuckers only if you're the type of person who also feels comfortable using the word "cute" to describe leprosy.

Sheriff Joe? Are you there?

I hope you're reading this. Three messages:

1. I used to visit AZ quite a bit. But as long as you're there, tourists should steer clear of the whole state. (Besides, New Mexico has better southwestern grub.)

2. If you want people to vote Republican, spewing birther madness is counter-productive. Right-wingers in this country have gone so fucking crazy that they have actually transformed me, an early and fervent Obama opponent, into someone who will probably vote D in 2012.

Yeah, I'll regret it. I get sick to my stomach just thinking about it. But reactionary conspira-creeps like you have left me feeling utterly weirded out.

If Obama has you for an enemy, Joe, then that useless sunvabitch in the oval office must have done something right. Give me a few months and I might even figure out what that something is.

3. I can't speak for Riverdaughter and the other writers who came out of The Confluence, but I have a strong suspicion that they'd tell you not to use the once-honorable PUMA label to justify your forays into birther nuttiness. If you truly consider the pro-Hillary Democrats of 2008 to be "ultra-leftists," then hie thee to a shrink and get back on your meds.

7 comments:

Mr. Mike said...

This birther BS gets play on the AM talk circuit but that's about it. The people that buy into it are never going to vote for a Democrat anyway so there is noting lost. A side question, did anybody ever figure out who that Techdude guy that ran that scam on Noquarter is?

For now, my money is on the House starting something on Obama late spring early summer if his numbers look like he'll get re-elected.

LandOLincoln said...

We've got better scenery here in the LandOEnchantment too*--with the possible exception of that big hole in the ground just south of Williams, AZ.

We've also got Robert Redford, Shirley MacLaine and Wes Studi as permanent residents, and any time now--at least for month or so--JOHNNY DEPP.

Finally, it's been estimated that our third largest employer--right after the military and UNM--is William Bonney aka Billy the Kid.

We are just sooo damn kewl (and Joe's right about the food, too.)

*My handle's a nod to my home state

Anonymous said...

The Confluence was NEVER a birther site. Riverdaughter NEVER allowed anyone to post that bs.

It was clear from the start that Obama was a DINO on everything except, perhaps, foreign policy. On that, he was a naive panderer.

Hillary has always stood for Democratic values. Despite their GOP-driven reputation as the party that doesn't care about the military, many Democratic leaders have been veterans and are willing to go to war to protect American interests. Every thinking person who looked at Obama's actual record knew that he would've voted to give Bush the power to invade Iraq if he had been in the Senate at the time.

Every politician gains some freaks as fans and Hillary is no different. She can't control their behavior but she's never given them, including the birthers, the time of day, either.

It was beyond irresponsible of you to link Riverdaughter or her blog to birtherism in any way, even inadvertently. You should apologize to her.

Montana said...

Mitt Romney's Mexican father, hmmmmm.......Are the simple minded "BIRTHERS", going to ask Romney for his birth certificate? We all know this was never about a birth certificate, if it was then these same people would be asking Romney for his. It's about small minded people who hate African Americans and do not have the brains to review a President's policy so they make something up. So sad, so sad.

Joseph Cannon said...

"It was beyond irresponsible of you to link Riverdaughter or her blog to birtherism in any way, even inadvertently. You should apologize to her."

Thank you, Anonymous, for proving once again that people who comment anonymously tend to be idiots. Are you old enough to recall Gilda Radner's "Emily Letella" character on the original Saturday Night Live? You should look that stuff up, because you just did a great impersonation of Emily.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTNmSwDt5kc

What a moron you are, Anonymous! It just goes to prove -- no matter how simply one tries to express oneself, no matter how clear the words, someone out there will find some crazy way to mis-read what one writes.

For what it is worth, I brought my piece to RD's attention in a comment on her blog. She apparently liked what I wrote and agreed with it -- because she read the words I ACTUALLY WROTE. She didn't hallucinate a completely different message, as you did.

Tony Ryals said...

I dislike and distrust both Barack Obama as well as 'Sheriff Joe'.
However even though I know the issue has been turned into a right wing issue and I'm not right wing,I still think something's not correct about either the birth certificate or the social security card of Mr.
Barry Soetoro or Barack Obama either.And I don't trust Russian Israeli Orly Taitz interest in the issue either although in a way I'm greatful someone asked the questions even if they weren't native born.
However she is correct in my opinion that a birth certificate issued in the U.S. at the time of Obama's birth WOULD NOT describe Obama - or any other black person born in America at the time - as 'African' but would have used the word negro or black in that space on the bith certificate.
A buddy of Sheriff Joe named Bud Burrell who is also connected to Overstock.com Geico billionaire Patrick Byrne and massive penny stock money laundering fraud among others has threatened my life so make no mistake - Iam not in any way biased in favor of those low life pink panty perverts.:

http://austin.indymedia.org/article/2011/07/16/arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio-protects-armed-racistsmoney-launderers-bud-burrelldewa

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio protects armed racists,money launderers Bud Burrell,Dewayne Reeves of CFRN,
Why ?

Montana said...

Lets be clear none of these dullards have won a case in the "U.S. Courts", maybe in their simple minds (if they have any) but not in our "U.S. Courts", so unless Birthers/ Teabaggers, whatever you want to be called, win a court case, we will continue to see as dullards, liars or racist or maybe all three. Deal with that baby!