It turns out Barack Obama is . . . is . . . a citizen. The White House has released President Obama’s long-form birth certificate to put the growing controversy to rest over his birth. Many of us have been critical of the birther conspiracy theories. However, I am not sure why the White House did not do this earlier since it addresses the allegations fully. It will be interesting to see that, now that Obama has produced the certificate, if the movement for state ballot laws declines. While it has been repeatedly stated that the laws are not about Obama, but we will see.
The long-form clearly states the date and other information. It also includes the name of Obama’s father — a focus of recent suggestions that the reason for withholding the document was the name of a different man or the inclusion of Muslim for religion.
Donald Trump immediately took credit for the disclosure stating, “Today, I’m very proud of myself, because I’ve accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish,” Trump told reporters. “Why he didn’t do it when everybody else was asking for it, I don’t know. But I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue.”
I am not sure why the White House held on to the document. One theory could be that they knew it would blow up in the faces of Obama’s critics. However, it has served to rally critics for years. Those critics are not likely to register with the DNC now. They are likely to move on to other claims against Obama.
Perhaps now that he clearly was born in Hawaii, they will now claim that his is part of the Hawaiian royalty and thus making him ineligible as the holder of a foreign ennoblement.
Here are the two pages: Obama_birth_certificate and birth-certificate-long-form
Jonathan Turley
LOL–Slart!
“and President Obama is NOT a dual citizenship – he had potential British/Kenyan citizenship at birth which expired when he reached majority,”
POTENTIAL British/Kenyan citizenship????? POTENTIAL? He either did or he DID NOT. And since his father WAS a British subject because Kenya was under British rule—-Obama Jr WAS a BRITISH citizen. You said it yourself—-at BIRTH! AT BIRTH!
It wouldnt MATTER if it expired later because the qualification for being eligible for Prez ONLY REFERS TO AT BIRTH! NO OTHER time in your life—-only AT BIRTH—–DICKWEED!
eniobob, the cognitive dissonance must be thick enough to cut with a knife.
In real time,I wonder what the teaparty people in Tuscaloosa think about the governments role in their lives this unfortunate day for so many there today?
“High unemployment
High gas prices
high deficits
high debt
can’t do w/o teleprompter”
Kris,
FAUX and Rush are doing you a great disservice – that’s a very outdated talking point list.
Larry, you ignorant slut:
STAY DOWN
Larry posted:
Now just STAY DOWN!
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/with-drudge-reports-help-birthers-latch-onto-phony-forgery-theory.php?ref=fpa
Larry, self-hatred is a terrible thing. Sorry you have to be in such a hole. Oh wait….you dug it yourself. Never mind.
Slart, you get more moronic as you go.
You said:
“Yes, and it is distinct from the grandfather clause (maybe you noticed the funny little ‘;’ separating them…).” By the way, the NBC clause as originally suggested didn’t include the grandfather clause – do you think that John Jay’s intent was to exclude everyone from being POTUS until someone born in the US came of age?”
My original points were that the founders were EXEMPT from the qualifications that stand for everyone born AFTER 1787. If the founders meant NO distinction between NATURAL BORN and just a CITIZEN of the US, they would NOT have said, “No person except a natural born Citizen, OR A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES, AT THE TIME OF THE ADOPTION OF THIS CONSTITUTION”.
Do you notice the distinction between NATURAL BORN and “citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution”?? If all one had to be was JUST born in America and that’s IT, the founders would have said:
“No person, except an American citizen shall be eligible to the Office of President”.
Why would they have had the need to distinguish between NATURAL BORN citizens and citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution if all you had to be was born IN the US?
I’m guessing you will ignore, ignore, ignore.
By the way, that book did not PROVE Jefferson was a French citizen, because NOWHERE in that portion you posted did it say WHEN he became a citizen. It could have been in 1810 [after he was president]. Like I said—-it wouldn’t have mattered ANYWAY. He was a FOUNDER. He could have been 19 years old and still became President if he wanted to. He was grandfathered in. Obama being a dual citizen is not covered because he is not a FOUNDER. I think a 5 year old can understand this…why can’t you??
OS loves that race card. It is used every single time someone doesn’t like something Obama does. Don’t like governmnet running your healthcare? RACIST! Don’t like the fact that Obama has continued about 15 Bush policies? RACIST! Don’t like that Obama has failed to prosecute Bush for war crimes? RACIST! Don’t like that Obama has started a THIRD war unconstitutionally? RACIST! Don’t like that Obama released a photoshopped fake birth certificate? RACIST!
Like I have said over and over, I said McCAIN was not eligible too on my blog. But you ignorant dicklickers keep ignoring it. Here’s my story from Feb. 2008
http://realtruthonline.blogspot.com/2008/02/john-mccain-is-not-eligible-to-run-for.html
I guess I hate white people too OS!
rafflaw,
You mean what happened to the hair of the male Ranpunzel? Maybe he should be locked up in a tower room so far away from humanity that we can’t hear his idiotic lies and blatherings!
AY,
There you go again. Don’t confuse Kris by asking for facts!
Elaine,
When Trumpty fell what happened to his hair?
Yo, where da biy been?
http://www.salon.com/news/donald_trump/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/04/28/donald_trump_discrimination_suit Trump has been sued for discrimination against black renters.
Why “The Donald” Is a Birther: An Explanation in Verse
Trumpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall…
Conked his head on the concrete and damaged his brain.
There really is nothing else left to explain.
Don’t believe the Obama big spender hype
The GOP just can’t handle the truth: Tax cuts, war and the financial crisis created our huge deficits
By Andrew Leonard
How many outright errors of fact can you spot in the following paragraph from an op-ed by Mitt Romney published this Monday?
[Barack Obama’s] approach has been to engage in one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history. With its failed stimulus package, its grandiose new social programs, its fervor for more taxes and government regulations, and its hostility toward business, the administration has made the debt problem worse, hindered economic recovery and needlessly cost American workers countless jobs.
Let’s see. We’re at war in Afghanistan, so “peacetime” is dubious. Obama has cut taxes — income taxes, payroll taxes, taxes for small businesses. Private sector economic forecasters say the stimulus increased GDP growth and kept the unemployment rate from rising higher. We could even range into the subjective, and argue that from the left side of the political aisle, Obama has been anything but hostile to business and hasn’t done nearly enough to regulate the financial sector. And we could note, just for fun, that Obama’s “grandiose” social program is modeled explicitly after the healthcare reform enacted by none other than Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. (And this guy, most political analysts think, poses the biggest threat to Obama’s reelection!)
But nothing is more ridiculous than the notion that Obama is a “binge” spender. Paul Krugman rightfully calls this scurrilous accusation a “zombie lie.” No matter how many times you kill it, whether by decapitation, a spike through the heart or immolation — it just keeps coming back. It’s enough to make you despair — particularly when you consider how many more times we’re going to hear this nonsense from Romney and the rest of the Republican presidential candidates from now until the last precinct closes on Election Day 2012.
But as long as the undead keep coming, we have no choice but to fight hellspawn with our own holy fire. So let’s review the facts.
The current budget deficit is predominantly an outgrowth of the Bush tax cuts, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Medicare Part D and the financial crisis.
Here’s the first thing to understand. Before Obama took office, before he was able to spend a single dime as president, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that the 2009 deficit would be $1 trillion dollars. According to an analysis published by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in June 2010, about half of that total — $500 billion — can be attributed to the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another $400 billion was a direct result of the “changed economic outlook” — the collapse of “tax revenues and swelling outlays for unemployment insurance, food stamps and other safety-net programs.”
In the summer of 2009, the New York Times’s David Leonhardt (recently awarded a Pulitzer prize for his economic coverage) conducted an indispensable analysis of the budget deficit for 2009. (By that point it was projected to hit $1.2 trillion; ultimately it reached $1.4 trillion — in part because of stimulus spending and in part because the economy continued to get worse.) Leonhardt observed that since 2000, the year that Bill Clinton bequeathed George Bush with an $800 billion surplus, there had been a negative $2 trillion swing in the health of the government’s finances. Crunching the numbers from a decade’s worth of CBO reports, Leonhardt discovered:
The 2001 and 2007-2009 recessions accounted for 37 percent of the swing — again, because of decreased tax revenue and automatically higher spending on social welfare.
Legislation signed by George Bush accounted for another 33 percent — the tax cuts and Medicare Part D.
“Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.”
“About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.”
The CBPP includes a neat little chart in its analysis that brings home the long-term consequences of the decisions made by Bush and Obama. Yes, the stimulus added to the budget deficit in the short term, but over the next 10 years, its contribution to the ongoing deficit — along with TARP and the Fannie-Freddie rescue — is minimal. The real drivers of the deficit will continue to be the Bush tax cuts and the wars — if both continue. The tax cuts alone will account for some $7 trillion of the additional national debt over the next 10 years. And the interest payments on the debt accrued simply to pay for the automatic safety-net response to the Great Recession will also continue making a meaningful impact for years to come, long after a full recovery.
Fiscal Chart
Obama, of course, bears some responsibility for continuing the Bush tax cuts and the Bush wars — but so do nearly every Republican legislator, and it’s very difficult to imagine that Mitt Romney as president would have done anything differently. In fact, it’s quite possible that the deficit would have gotten worse under Romney, because if he had decided to inject no stimulus at all into the economy, the downturn would likely have been worse, tax revenue would have declined even further, and social welfare spending would be even greater. And if any Republican president had attempted to slash spending in accordance with current party rhetoric, we’d be staring directly into the depths of Great Depression 2.0.
Also crucial to note: Obama’s major new initiatives were either designed to be short term, such as the stimulus, or revenue neutral, such as healthcare reform. That’s not something you can say about Bush’s budget busters.
The budget deficits under Obama are big, there’s no doubt about that. But the primary drivers of those deficits are a combination of decisions made by George W. Bush and the worst economic crisis in the United States in 80 years.
Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More: Andrew Leonard
http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2011/04/27/the_big_obama_spending_lie
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/29/971038/-Yoo:-President-can-order-childs-testicles-crushed,-not-contractor-transparency-
By Melissa Harris-Perry
What the Birthers’ Obsessions Say About Identity in America
Many say that birtherism is just racism, but there’s more than simple racial animus behind it.
April 28, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150774/for_the_%22birthers%2C%22_it_may_be_that_obama_isn%27t_black_enough?akid=6899.147321.cLUboZ&rd=1&t=5
“I call it for what it is: The birther issue is about race, not qualification to be President. If he had been born of two white parents, I daresay we would not be hearing this hue and cry.”
I bet people wished Jimmy Carter hadn’t been born in the US either.
Our country is in deep trouble, Bush gave it a left jab with Iraq and TARP; Obama is providing the knock out punch. I would say the question is now whether we can transition to a socialist country without some sort of civil war or the creation of some sort of fascist dictatorship. The elements are in place.
The chasm between right and left is deep and wide and hateful. Hopefully we can find some common ground and avoid the destruction a civil war or fascist dictatorship would cause to our country.
It is very disturbing.
What is the difference between the public debt and the deficit?
The deficit is the difference between the money Government takes in, called receipts, and what the Government spends, called outlays, each year. Receipts include the money the Government takes in from income, excise and social insurance taxes as well as fees and other income. Outlays include all Federal spending including social security and Medicare benefits along with all other spending ranging from medical research to interest payments on the debt. When there is a deficit, Treasury must borrow the money needed for the government to pay its bills.
We borrow the money by selling Treasury securities like T-bills, notes, Treasury Inflation-Protected securities and savings bonds to the public. Additionally, the Government Trust Funds are required by law to invest accumulated surpluses in Treasury securities. The Treasury securities issued to the public and to the Government Trust Funds (intragovernmental holdings) then become part of the total debt.
One way to think about the debt is as accumulated deficits.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/news/pressroom/pressroom_bpd08052004.htm
Oh Kris,
Can you tell us…exactly how much Debt OBAMA has created vs the GOP Years….. in real dollars….