Why is this guy still in business?

Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s volunteer investigation into documents pertaining to President Barack Obama’s place of birth and citizenship now includes the services of a taxpayer-funded deputy, according to Arpaio.

The deputy joined Mike Zullo, a volunteer member of Arpaio’s cold-case posse, in Hawaii this week in part due to “security issues,” according to Arpaio, and because the investigation has progressed.

“It’s one deputy, so what? We have security issues, too, that I can’t get into,” Arpaio said on Friday. “For six months, we were not spending any money. When you’re doing investigations, sometimes things change, you put more resources into it.”

With the U.S. Justice Department going after Arpaio for corruption and discrimination against Latinos, the question is whether Joe is a true birther or simply seeking his brand of political revenge by feeding into his racist ways. In either case, Alex Pareene gets it right.

Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County and living embodiment of everything vile and rotten in contemporary American society, has been hard at work investigating whether the president of the United States is an American citizen, which the president is, case closed. Or rather, case closed for people who don’t make a living stoking racist paranoia.

And yet the scumbag gets away with it. Here’s a link to TPM’s compilation of the many investigations into Arapio’s shady activities.

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(The Arpaio source photograph is a Creative Commons licensed image from photographer Gage Skidmore.)

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Republican Rep. Mike Coffman at a Saturday afternoon fundraiser in Colorado.

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

A few hours later, after video and a transcript of his words appeared online, Coffman pulls back and issues a statement.

I misspoke and I apologize,” the statement began. “I have confidence in President Obama’s citizenship and legitimacy as President of the United States

Ah yes, I just love those fake apologies…especially when they come packaged with qualifiers.

I don’t believe the president shares my belief in American Exceptionalism. His policies reflect a philosophy that America is but one nation among many equals. As a Marine, I believe America is unique and based on a core set of principles that make it superior to other nations.

Two things. First of all, yes, America is unique…but so is Canada, Ireland and Madagascar with each having a role to play in the  league of nations. Americans can definitely claim superiority in specific areas and endeavors but to claim a general superiority over all nations is a dangerous game. It gives a false sense of moral justification to do what they please on the world stage. It can lead, for example, to actions like invading other countries on trumped up charges and making the claim it was done for the betterment of mankind.

History has shown that claims of superiority over all others is a fool’s game. Romans and the Roman body politic thought itself to be a superior people with superior ideals long before the collapse of the empire.

Secondly, Coffman obviously did not misspeak in bringing up the President’s birthplace. The guy is an idiotic birther who was told to walk back his birther claims or risk coming off as a kook. Too late, damage is done.

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Make sure you circle March 1 on your calendars. It might very well turn out to be the most earth-shattering day in U.S. political history.

The results of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “investigation” into whether President Barack Obama is eligible for office are set to be announced.

MCSO spokesman Jeff Sprong tells New Times the findings are set to be released on March 1.

Arpaio’s been mostly hush-hush about the probe, but has promised his “birther” posse will deliver a “shock” with its findings on the conspiracy theory that’s been continuously debunked for several years now.

And it all comes down to twin babies and something you probably last heard of in a 1970s spy movie…microfiche!

Arpaio told New Times in November that the key to investigating whether Obama’s eligible for the office of the president deals with twins born at the same Hawaii hospital as the president (allegedly), just one day earlier.

The sheriff said the twins’ files could be found on microfiche — meaning Obama’s records should be there too.

One of the most brilliant and diabolical plots ever conceived will finally be brought down by a lousy piece of plastic film. Nice. Kudos to Sheriff Arpaio for taking the initiative and hiring a posse (did they have horses?) and finally putting an end to the black Muslim’s illegal reign of terror.

Orly Taitz should be given a medal for sticking in there when the rest of the world mocked her and referred to her as a crazy, racist bitch with a bad wig. Well, I’m thinking that while few people would argue the fact that Orly gives every impression of being both crazy and a racist, March 1 will be her day of redemption. Thank you, Sheriff Arpaio.

Stay tuned.

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Mike Huckabee offers advice to Mitt Romney concerning his unreleased tax returns.

Let him [Romney] make this challenge: “I’ll release my tax returns when Barack Obama releases his college transcripts and the copy of his admission records to show whether he got any loans as a foreign student. When he releases that, talk to me about my tax returns.”

A foreign student? For all his supposed good ol’ boy charm and much-touted Christian values, Huckabee is just another run-of-the-mill, right-wing, lying jackass spewing the same birther-crap that’s been refuted time and time again.

And what exactly does the President’s college transcripts have to do with Romney releasing his tax returns?  Nothing.

Bill Maher had a great comment last night about how Romney and his cohorts on the right have created a fictional person to do battle with.  They refer to this opponent as Barack Obama but, in truth, bears no resemblance to the actual person.  Their President Obama is a Marxist who cannot put two thoughts together without the help of a teleprompter.  Their Obama is a tax-raising, money-spending, freedom-hating, Constitution-abusing, power-hungry simpleton who goes around the world apologizing for the U.S.

Any resemblance between the right’s Obama and the one who sits in the White House is nonexistent.

And the further to the right one goes on the political spectrum, the more bizarre the accusations.  Obama is then attributed with siding with the terrorists, is of the Muslim religion and in all likelihood was born in Kenya.  Hello, Orly Taitz and Mike Huckabee.

The right has gone completely mad.  There’s no other rational explanation.

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They don’t call Orly Taitz the crazy Republican (<– redundancy?) without reason.
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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 
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There you have it, a perfect example of the right-wing fringe in action which has become less fringe and more mainstream with each passing day . And should anyone make the claim that Taitz is more exception than rule, than may I suggest that either: a) you have not been paying attention to the endless stream of hysteria emerging from the right over the last three years or b) over-exposure to Fox has undoubtedly fried one brain cell too many.

The age of teabagging/birtherism/lunacy/batshit crazy is fully upon us and all it took was the simple act of voting in a black liberal to the White House.
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OK. So the President releases his long form birth certificate and birtherism is dealt a fatal blow as the 67% of Republicans who were unsure of Obama’s place of birth let out a collective sigh of relief and finally come to accept this man as their President. Right? Wrong. It’s not over and it’ll never be over for as long as this president’s skin color continues to cast a non-white hue.

The bigots will never admit it but birtherism has its roots in racism and no document will take away the true birther’s view that this president is illegitimate.  Here’s Joseph Farah of WorldNutDaily on the issue:

“The certificate of live birth is an absolutely vital foundation for determining constitutional eligibility of any president. We look forward to reviewing it like so many other Americans do at this late date. But it is important to remember there are still dozens of other questions concerning this question of eligibility that need to be resolved to assure what has become a very skeptical public concerning Barack Obama’s parentage, his adoption, his citizenship status throughout his life and why he continues to cultivate a culture of secrecy around his life.”

As I said, nothing has changed. For racists, the President is a ni**er and doubly so when his middle name is Hussein. And as anyone who has ever attempted to debate a bigot can confirm, there is nothing that can possibly change a dull little mind and minds don’t come any duller than those of birthers.

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I’m not completely certain what the deal is with Donald Trump these days.  Is his birther posturing of late simply an act or is the man a total nutcase? Probably a bit of both. In any case, he’s now gotten into a verbal battle with New York Time’s columnist, Gail Collins, who wrote a stinging critical piece on Trump’s presidential aspirations.

Donald Trump has run faux campaigns for president before, flirting with the Democrats and independents. This time, he’s playing a conservative Republican. By 2016, he’ll probably be talking about his affinity for the Alaskan Independence Party or the Whigs.

Trump took exception to the criticism and especially to being referred to as a birther – a term which he feels is derogatory. Well, he’s right on that count.  It is a derogatory term, as it should be.  It refers to people who are delusionally insane and/or unwilling to accept the fact that a black man has made it to the White House. Take your pick.  And as long as Trump continues with his ‘show us the birth certificate‘ idiocy, birther is a fitting term to describe him.

Trump fired back with a letter to the Times in which he personally attacked Collins…

Even before Gail Collins was with the New York Times, she has written nasty and derogatory articles about me.  Actually, I have great respect for Ms. Collins in that she has survived so long with so little talent. Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level. More importantly, her facts are wrong!

He also went on to repeat the same debunked claims that President Obama was not born in the U.S.

Open your eyes, Gail, there’s at least a good chance that Barack Hussein Obama has made mincemeat out of our great and cherished Constitution!

I always love when President Obama’s opponents make note of his middle name in their attacks.  It’s as if they believe that repeating the word “Hussein” somehow adds weight and credibility to their arguments.  Idiots.

Anyway, best line of the Trump/Collins battle goes to Ms. Collins. Referring to the Trump escapades of late (he also believes that Bill Ayers wrote Obama’s ‘Dreams From My Father‘), Collins writes:

I find this a disturbing spectacle — a little like seeing a guy you know from the neighborhood suddenly turn up in the middle of Times Square with his face painted blue and yelling about space aliens.

So what exactly makes Trump any different from the current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls such as Bachmann, Gingrich and Palin?  Not much really.  They’re one sorry lot of clowns, fools, liars, sociopaths and jackasses.

All in all, it tells you a whole lot about the state of that particular political party.  It doesn’t get more pathetic than this.

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George Will is concerned.

If pessimism is not creeping on little cat’s feet into Republicans’ thinking about their 2012 presidential prospects, that is another reason for pessimism. This is because it indicates they do not understand that sensible Americans, who pay scant attention to presidential politics at this point in the electoral cycle, must nevertheless be detecting vibrations of weirdness emanating from people associated with the party.

The most recent vibrator is Mike Huckabee..

When not showing righteous indignation toward unwed mothers, Huckabee finds himself pandering to the lowest form of human intelligence existing in the right’s growing fringe of loons – birthers. Asked by a talk radio wingnut about the President’s supposed unwillingness to show his birth certificate, Huckabee said:

“I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya. . . .”

Huckabee was given a golden opportunity to earn credibility points by dismissing the question as well as the entire birther movement as pure nonsense. Instead he opted to feed the beast with his “I would love to know more..” response. And for good measure he threw in an outright lie. Barack Obama did not grow up in Kenya. Five of his first eighteen years were spent in Indonesia. The rest were in Hawaii.  As for Huckabee’s claim that he meant to say Indonesia, well, that’s been shown to be a lie too.

Huckabee joins Newt Gingrich in attempting to create a nefarious Obama/Kenyan connection. Here was the newt’s comment from a few months back.

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

Which led Will to write…

So the Republican winnowing process is far advanced. But the nominee may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons.

And that, folks, is your day’s message from a conservative icon.  Good stuff.
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Just when you thought that Obama Derangement Syndrome had maxed out the lunacy index, this comes out of Georgia.

A House Republican this week – backed by 93 other lawmakers – proposed a law that would force presidential and vice presidential candidates to prove their citizenship before landing on the Georgia ballot.

House Bill 401 would not allow a candidate on the ballot until the Secretary of State receives “adequate evidence of such person’s eligibility for election” to those offices. The bill’s sponsor is Mark Hatfield, R-Waycross, but has huge backing with other GOP members.

“I think the issue with our sitting president has been left unresolved for a significant length of time that people have concerns,” Hatfield said. “But this is not just about our current president. It’s about enforcing the constitutional provisions for anyone who seeks the office of presidency.

The Constitution. It’s always about the Constitution and nothing about birthers being crazy racists who cannot accept a black man as their president. Whatever. These idiots accomplish little more than reinforce the belief in the minds of independents as well as the sane of both political parties that the GOP is the place where bigots, racists and the dim-witted all converge in one grand display of STOOPID.

For the record, Georgia becomes the11th state with pending legislation of this kind.  They join Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Connecticut, Indiana, Tennessee and Maine. I can’t wait for those Koch brothers paid attack ads next year. I’m sure they’ll be lovely.

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Karl Rove on birtherism.

“This is the White House strategy, they love this. Look, the President could come out and say ‘Here are the documents,’ but they are happy to have this controversy continue.”

“Every moment the conservatives talk about this, they marginalized themselves and diminish themselves in the minds of independent voters.”

a)  The people who were required to see the documents, have seen them.  End of story.  The President issued his birth certificate and there is no need to cater further to the lunatic fringe of the Republican party.  By the way, it’s getting increasingly more difficult to refer to the kooks on the right as being part of a ‘fringe’.  The right-wing fringe has gone mainstream.

b)  If this was a “White House strategy”, it’s a damn good one. Birthers are conservatives and Republicans and voters should be reminded of this fact at every opportunity. They were not created by Dems but instead emerged from the bigoted, idiot wing of the Republican party.  Birthers are conservatives who are unwilling to accept a black man as their President.

Sorry Karl, but these idiots are part of the folks you counted on to vote for George W. Bush.  You loved them then.  You’re stuck with them now.

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