Tag Archives: Right Wing Hate Speech

Losing the Debate at the Facebook School of Political Analysis

Posted on by

I tired my best, but I was beaten by the superior reasoning and factual evidence deployed by the expert political analysts at the Facebook School of Politics. I must shamefully admit that I was unable to supply an adequate response to the now re-emergent charge circulating furiously (again) among the ravening right (read: GOP base): Barack Obama is “spending millions” to keep hidden his secretly “sealed” college records.

Yes. You know how this works:

Facebook Expert Panel of Political Analyst-commenters (FEPAs): If he has nothing to hide, why is he spending millions to keep his college records sealed?

Me: What?

FEPAs: Yes. That’s right. Obama has spent MILLIONS to keep secret the fact that he attended Occidental University under the name of Barry Soetoro and received aid as a foreign student!

Me: Huh?

FEPAs: FOOL!

Me: Is this the “Obama is foreign-born thing” again? Aren’t we done with that?

FEPAs: Shut up, libtard!

And so it began… (not really; this was the—slightly—fictionalized version)

Here’s a sampling of the actual onslaught of air tight evidence and overpowering logic I was unable to refute:

I believe Obama got a leg up by being admitted to Occidental and Columbia as a foreign exchange student. He was raised as a young boy in Indonesia. It’s a fact. His mother brought him there. His mother made him an Indonesian citizen. But did his mother ever bother to change it back to a US citizen? I bet it not [sic]. That explains why the sitting president of the United States will spend millions of dollars in legal fees to keep his past sealed.[1]

Just who was in school..barack hussein obama or barry soetoro (foreign exchange student from Indonesia)?…release the records mr. president.

…if he has nothing to hide, why has he spent millions to cover it up. He’s hiding something. It is damaging. Question is – what is it?

He has not only SEALED all his records at Harvard and Occidental, but he has spent MILLIONS of dollars doing it. Why? Why the big secret? …we don’t know what Obama did because he has sealed his records. Why?? No curiosity Paul? The guy is only running for the highest office in the world. Why DON’T you care? What about Obama’s COMMUNIST background? ALL three of his fathers [sic] were COMMUNISTS. His mother was, his grandparents were, his professors and all his friends were. He even ADMITS it in his books! He doesn’t just want Socialism…for the USA – he wants Communism.

Obama’s motives are clear Paul. I encourage you to go see 2016. He is angry for countries like Indonesia and Kenya that he sees were victims of Colonization by the British. He sees the United States as the biggest Colonizer of all and is on a MISSION to ‘right the wrong’. How? By redistribution this countries wealth to THIRD world counties, reducing our NUCLEAR stockpile to ZERO, and putting the USA on equal status with 3rd world countries around the world.

So you can see the kind of expert information and analysis I was up against and was unable to refute in the confines of a Facebook chain of comments.

Okay, that’s not actually true. I decided not to take on the bogus charges, opting instead to try the high road by pointing out how self-defeating these efforts to disqualify and delegitimize Obama are—how they backfire and make the right seem deranged and end up undermining the legitimate case that Obama opponents could make for unseating him from office.

For my efforts I got this:

Paul, try to keep your rants & raves to something that doesn’t take all day to read. Your [sic] so far left your lying down. Who needs to hear that crap anyway?

(Okay. It wasn’t all highroad; I took a few snarky cheapshots—but you knew that…)

Why I care

My first instinct was to resist the urge to dive into the whole swamp of lies being spread by the FB rightwing droolers. I thought this latest upchucking of “What is Obama hiding” was just regurgitated old stuff that had already been so thoroughly debunked that it really did not merit response.

But then it occured to me that those of us in the reality-based community cannot just sit around being satisfied with our rightness while lies and rumors are going viral. (That is, after all, how the democratic government of Germany was lost to Nazism.)

As Romney’s inability to defeat Obama on actual policy and vision becomes increasingly apparent, the fringe right (Republican base) is cranking up the old lie machine. By itself this would merit no more than smug laughter.

Unfortunately. there are still some folks who, although they are generally dismissive of the accusations, don’t know the full extent of the lies contained within the diverse array of claims circulating in kookspace and showing up unbidden in email inboxes everywhere. The confusion being deliberately sewn by the purveyors of this e-swill is having a demonstrable impact. In the most recent polling on questions of Obama’s background, 37% of the public said they weren’t sure that he is not a secret Muslim (that’s in addition to the hardcore 17% who are sure he is). So, thanks to the sickening and elaborate disinformation campaign being run by the right, it’s likely we’re about to reelect a president who nearly half the nation believes either is or could be a secret Muslim bent on sealing his records from public scrutiny.

Thus shrugging the whole circus off as just a…circus is simply not enough. Nothing could be worse for democracy or the nation at this point than just trying to laugh off the delegitimization campaign against Obama–an old campaign now reignited by the obvious fact that Romney is almost certainly going to lose a race he should be able to win (unless he can manage to pull a very big rabbit of debate virtuosity out of a very small and shrinking hat of opportunity).

So into the muck we will go. As an act of civic responsibility and democratic patriotism (and because I have a few extra hours to spare before the work-related deluge recommences), here goes.

Taking on the Lies

So here are the lies and/or hysterical points of misanalysis I decided to address (it was a big menu and thus a tough choice):

1. Obama’s spent millions to seal his records

2. Obama was registered as foreign student Barry Soetoro at Occidental (or maybe Columbia)

3. Obama is a citizen of Indonesia (and/or his mother surrendered his US citizenship in Indonesia)

Obama spent millions to seal his records

This is just false on its face. There are no sealed Obama records. Courts seal records when something that would normally be a matter of public record is ordered to be guarded against public scrutiny. No court has ever ordered any public record relating to Barack Obama sealed. All public records about Obama are open to public examination. The basic problem may be that the FEPAs and other people who circulate as facts chain email messages and stuff they gather in their FreeRepublic.com research don’t actually know what a “sealed record” is.

  • Obama’s college records: Under federal law it would be a crime for any college to release any student’s records without that student’s consent. Obama has declined to release his educational records, as did George W Bush (they were leaked) and almost every other presidential candidate and office holder in recent history. Mitt Romney has declined to release his.[2]And as to the millions Obama has spent on…ummm…not releasing them (?), the FEPAs must be confused by the bounties that rightwing groups have publicly offered as an inducement for someone to commit a federal crime by leaking them. No evidence exists that Obama has spent a penny on not consenting to the release of private documents. Turns out, not consenting is fairly inexpensive.

    Orly Taitz, Super Sleuth

    • Selective Service records: The rumor that Obama never registered for the draft was first circulated by that noted maven of investigative research, Orly Taitz. It has since been widely circulated in rightwing chain emails. Unfortunately for the FEPAs and others in the conspiracy-crazed community, Obama is of an age such that he and other young men of his cohort were only required to fill out a registration form (the draft having long since ended); thus the only official “record” would be his registration form and his selective service number. These are public.

Here’s his Selective Service number: 61-1125539-1.

Here’s a picture of his Selective Service registration form.

This took about six minutes to find. I used a magical and very powerful wizard’s trick for gathering secret information. It is known by insiders as G O O G L E (pronounced goo-gul).

  • Law firm client list: Like college records, a lawyer’s client list is legally deemed a private record. Thus no “seal” is necessary. Indeed, client lists are generally considered to be privileged and lawyers can be sued for negligently divulging information that could harm a client. The problem for the FEPAs is that Obama did release lists of clients while in the Illinois Senate, but has declined to release any more names—leaving about 30 clients that Obama has decided not to release. Again, no evidence that Obama has spent anything on not consenting to release private information.

Obama was registered as foreign student Barry Soetoro at Occidental (or maybe Columbia)

There are a couple of versions of the “student Soetoro” conspiracy. One claims he used the name at Columbia. (The name, taking his stepfather’s last name, is how his mother registered her child in a public school in Indonesia–for obvious reasons). This version includes what purports to be photographic evidence; a picture of Obama’s alleged student ID card bearing the name Barry Soetoro and the designation “Foreign Student”. This version has been repeatedly and easily debunked because the alleged card is easily revealed as a fraud; it is in a format not introduced at Columbia until 1996.

The Occidental version is simply a rumor circulating as a naked assertion of an untrue fact—backed up only by the “testimony” of an alleged classmate who says Barry smoked pot all day and got bad grades. (Which would raise the question of how he managed a transfer to Columbia University, a fact which even the goons over at Not-So-Breitbart News accept…). Occidental officials confirm that Barack Obama was a student and indicate that no records of any student named Barry Soetoro exist.

And, again, his academic records at Occidental and Columbia (and Harvard) are not sealed; Obama has simply declined to release them. FEPAs howl that if he has nothing to hide regarding the Soetoro allegations, there is no reason not to release them. Here’s a game: Karl Rove and I both went to George Mason University; I remember hearing all over the place about how Krazy Karl was dealing heroin cut with LSD and was once was apprehended by campus security for it but got released with a warning because of family connections. WHY WON’T KARL ROVE RELEASE ALL COLLEGE RECORDS? WHY ARE HIS RECORDS SEALED? WHAT IS KARL ROVE HIDING?! See how fun that game can be?

Obama is a citizen of Indonesia (and/or his mother surrendered his US citizenship in Indonesia)

This rococo claim is all tied up with the Barry Soetoro nonsense. When Obama was about four his mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian geography student at Hawaii University. Soetoro moved back to Indonesia in 1966 when Barack was five. His mother finished her BA in Hawaii in 1967 and she and Barack moved to Indonesia to join her husband. (This, by the way, was Ann Durham’s—Obama’s mother—first time in Indonesia, thus making the original story of the President’s real birth in Indonesia somewhat implausible…). Four years later, disatisfied with the education available in Indonesian schools, Durham sent her son, Barack, home to Hawaii to live with his grandparents while she continued her work in Indonesia.

So now, instead of claiming that Obama was not born in the U.S. (along with all the other original claims about the phony birth certificates and so forth), we switch to an alternate alternate reality in which Obama’s mother (1) surrenders Obama’s citizenship and makes him an Indonesian citizen, then (2) sends him back to the U.S. to go to school in Hawaii under the care of her mother so he can get a better education than what is available in Indonesia, without (3) re-obtaining his U.S. citizenship. See?

The proof? The “Foreign Student” status clearly shown on his Columbia ID? Nope. That’s a proven forgery.

Okay. We’ve got it: OBAMA WENT TO OCCIDENTAL ON A FULBRIGHT SCHOLARSHIP FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS!

Good! Except that the Fulbright is a scholarship for foreign advanced study students. Obama was an undergraduate and though he did receive a scholarship it was not the Fulbright.

How far will these people reach? There’s yet another gambit being pushed in the rightwing boobosphere: Obama’s mother at 18 was too young to ‘confer citizenship’ under Hawaiian law (since his natural father was a Kenyan you will recall). We’ll see how far this one gets. Oh, wait! This would conflict with another rightwing hate-point: Birthright citizenship. Whatever Hawaiian law may be, under the current understanding of the 14thAmendment (which these folks want to repeal or reinterpret), being born in the U.S. makes you a citizen.

A Nightmare

The process of researching this stuff has awakened me to a whole other level of insanity–one I would have ever believed possible. It is truly nightmarish, the stuff that’s out there. It is vile and ugly and wild–like a metastasizing tumor. And it is having a profound impact on how we do politics in America. Democracy is deeply imperiled by the “patriots” who spew this filth. (Every website touting this shit is drenched in stars and stripes.)

Admittedly, a lot of it is so bizarre it’s impossible not to laugh.

So, I laugh.

But I also remind myself that laughter is not enough. In all likelihood President Obama will be reelected; either he will be able to govern or the forces of the American fascist right will have made the nation ungovernable.

Think of how Obama has fared in the last four years as the most openly disrespected U.S. President ever. Then think of what we know about laughing off racist hatespeech. Then stop laughing.

Next Up: Two More Lies to Debunk

1. Obama is a communist.

2. Dinesh D’Souza is a public intellectual.

Related articles

[1] This is a direct extract from the article linked in the original FB posting that got the ‘conversation’ started. The snappy video report must not be missed!

[2] One FB genius thought it would be clever to suggest that Romney’s academic record has been released by listing a set of facts “we know” about Romney’s academic career: “Romney enrolled in Brigham Young University & graduated in 1971 with a Degree in English, with a 3.97GPA. Then he enrolled in both Harvard Law (HLS) and Harvard Business School (HBS) and obtained his MBA from HBS in 1975 and graduated cum laude from HLS with his Juris Doctor the same year, finishing in the top 5% of his class.” Unfortunately this is an exact copy of Mitt’s “record” as published without source or attribution on Republican-Candidates.org. Nice try, Cletus.

Limbaugh: Harpoon this Fucking Whale Before It Spews More Filth from Its Gaping Blowhole

Posted on by

Enemy of the people

I want to keep this really simple.

We need to take immediate, organized action to rid ourselves of this very real menace. Clear Channel has now had six days to remove its highly paid public racist and purveyor of broadcast sexual violence from the air. It has shown no inclination to do so and thus condones the fascistic takeover of the public square that Limbaugh’s most recent outrage against public decency represents.

Below you will find a list of those who feed and shelter this dangerous sociopath and their contact information. Use this information to demand an end to Limbaugh’s career.

As the father of a daughter, grandfather to a granddaughter, and a man who just generally cares about the fate of women in the world I want to say simply that Rush Limbaugh’s verbal thuggery constitutes a ‘high-tech lynching’ and an airwave-borne sexual assault. I feel a real and deep responsibility to join with others to demonstrate to the next generation of young women activists who have ideas to express and policies to advocate that they will not be publicly violated by pornographic verbal assaults when they enter the public square. Mr. Limbaugh’s toxic broadcast can no longer be tolerated.

Justice requires that Mr. Limbaugh be removed from the air.  Moreover, as the beneficiary of the licensed use of airwaves which are the property of the public, Mr. Limbaugh has forfeited the special privileges granted radio personalities to use the public airwaves to broadcast their views.

Limbaugh’s heinous, vulgar, and shocking public abuse of a woman who had the temerity to express opinions disagreeable to Mr. Limbaugh to her congressional representatives goes well beyond ‘political debate’ and is nothing short of broadcast terrorism. Make no mistake here, it is precisely and literally terrorism that Mr. Limbaugh has engaged in.

As we all know, this is not the first instance of broadcast hatespeech by this grotesque brownshirt with a big microphone, bigger mouth, and a bloated head that would be empty but for the coiled snakes of his obvious mental illness. Quite apparently, whatever treatment Mr. Limbaugh received for his drug addiction failed to address his underlying anger and hate issues.

While I generally empathize with the pain that accompanies mental illness, in Mr. Limbaugh’s case his infantile bullying is now a danger to the community;he and Clear Channel have more than sufficient resources to get him the help he so desperately needs. Let me say it plainly, Mr. Limbaugh’s behavior clearly indicates that he is an on-air drug abuser suffering from serious mental illness. As truth is an insurmountable defense against libel, I encourage everyone to publicly proclaim the truth that Rush Limbaugh is a mentally unstable, dangerous, drug addled sexual predator who uses the airwaves to stimulate himself by using threatening obscenity to assert power over women he finds threatening. SUE ME!

In the meantime, as a consumer, I will do everything I can to deprive Clear Channel of any revenues and will actively encourage others to starve the beast that provides Mr. Limbaugh the power to silence others and threaten the safety of those with whom he disagrees.

As a citizen I will take every possible action to pressure the FCC to investigate Clear Channel and the licenses of every local station that carries your programming.

 FOLKS WHO CAN FIRE LIMBAUGH:

 Premiere Networks (Limbaugh’s syndicator)

Julie Talbott, President, Content and Affiliate Relations: Corporate HQ; 15260 Ventura Blvd. Sherman Oaks, CA 91403/ (818) 377-5300

Executive VP of Sales, Carol Terakawa cterakawa@premiereradio.com 818-461-8097

Senior VP/Director of Talk Radio Sales,  Dan Metter dmetter@premiereradio.com 212-445-3926

Clear Channel (Owner of Premier Networks)

Clear Channel Corporate: Communications / Media Relations (210) 822-2828 publicrelations@clearchannel.com

Clear Channel Media and Entertainment: Press contact (210) 822-2828 RadioPress@ClearChannel.com

Bain Capital (Yes THAT Bain—owner of Clear Channel)

Corporate HQ: John Hancock Tower, 200 Clarendon Street, Boston, MA 02116. Main: (617) 516-2000; Fax: (617) 516-2010. MediaPR@baincapital.com (Media contact)

Thomas H. Lee Partners (co-owners of Clear Channel)

Corporate HQ: 100 Federal Street; Boston, MA 02110 Phone: 617/227-1050;  Fax: 617/227-3514 mbenson@sardverb.com Matt Benson (Media contact) rweinberg@sardverb.com Robin Weinberg

 

LIMBAUGH’S (REMAINING) ADVERTISERS

Tax Resolution Services

Michael Rozbruch, CEO ; Corporate HQ: 6345 Balboa Blvd, Suite 285; Encino, CA 91316; Phone: (818) 774-1813; Fax: (818) 774-9361

Debbie@taxresolution.com Debbie Edwards (Media contact)

Lifelock

Todd Davis, Chairman and CEO; Corporate HQ: 60 East Rio Salado Parkway, Suite 400 Tempe, AZ 85281; Phone: 800-543-3562; Fax: 888-244-9823

cortney@lifelock.com Cortney Lanik (Educational Program Manager)

Hillsdale College

33 East College Street; Hillsdale, MI 49242; Phone: (517) 437-7341; Fax: (517) 437-3923

Send an electronic message at: https://www.hillsdale.edu/admissions/askus/askus.asp

Allstate

Investor Relations: The Allstate Corporation; 2775 Sanders Road, Suite F3SE; Northbrook, IL 60062-6127; (800) 416-8803

invrel@allstate.com

Or send an electronic message at https://messaging.allstate.com/corp.aspx

TELL THE FCC TO INVESTIGATE AND PUNISH CLEAR CHANNEL

File a formal FCC complaint at http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm

 

Related articles

Festival of Holiday Hatred Sponsored on Facebook

Posted on by

Bill O'Reilly spreading a message of Christmas Spirit

So, about an hour ago, Bill O’Reilly posted some nonsense about a French Muslim who punched a nurse and went to jail. Here’s a copy of the post:

Bill O’Reilly

    • Daily Briefing: French Muslim Jailed for Punching Nurse Who Removed His Wife’s Burqa. http://bit.ly/tD5RAb

What is surprising is the Niagara of putrid hate-filled  filthspeak that poured forth from the kind of O’Reilly fans who typically (a) claim to be outraged that Christmas is under some sort of attack only they seem to know about, and (b) claim that they are outraged by this ‘War on Christmas’ because it persecutes them as Christians…

Christians? Read this sampling of braying, spittlespewing, malevolence gushing from the orifices of O’Reilly’s fan-base of demented barnyard intelligentsia…

Douglas R. Shirley Such peaceful people, let them stay in the 7th century, just leave the rest of us alone

Sandra Evans good maybe if more of them were jailed they wouldn’t be able to reproduce and continue on the hatred!

[Just brilliant irony there, Sandra…]

Kendon O’Brien jail and fine him. Religion of peace eh?

Lennie Giambalvo push the button.

Chris Raymer Punching someone is felonious assault. Jail him. The French police should never apologize for upholding the law.

[Apparently in the rightwing system of pathological hatred the French are okay only when arresting Muslims…]

Ken Bass That dog religion should be kept where it belongs. In the dog pound of the middle east.

Rosalind Pehoski Those women wear Burquas for a reason….and it’s not religion. It’s to keep others from screaming in horror. EEEEK!

Greg Karnes This guy getting put in jail is an excellent excellent Christmas gift lol. Merry Christmas Bill and everyone in this Christian Nation!!!!

Joyce Wood I wish they would ALL go back to their own country!!!

John Beaman Normal behavior for Muslims.

[Mr. O’Reilly has such a well-informed audience regarding the regular practices of Muslims…]

Joyce Wood The only reason why they are in our country is because Obama encouraged to come here in the first place! They all can go back where they came from!

[Apparently Ms. Wood missed the part where this all took place in FRANCE.]

Fred Gilbo When are these people going to get out of the stone age????

April Jolie Olson WHAT !!?????? remove the whole clothing and also the husband’s clothing then hang them on the street

Brandon Ramsey Yet people claim the Muslim religion is such a peaceful one.

John Dykes Islam is pure evil and hate. It’s in the teachings. And we have politicians who call it a peaceful religion? WTF? Muslims will take over the west just by large numbers moving in. They know are fredom of religion is our weakness and when the voting block is large enough, they will have their laws put into place over here. You can laugh all you want. It may not happen in our lifetimd but it’s coming.

MERRY CHRISTMAS O’REILLY FANS!

Related articles