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Connecticut Senate Race: Run, Ralph, Run
News reports indicating that Ralph Nader is considering a run for Senate from his home state Connecticut provoked some of the same tired and tiresome mantras familiar from previous campaigns: Nader the spoiler, Nader the loser, Nader the egomaniac, Nader the has been.
But this time there is a big difference.
For according to a Quinnipiac University poll, it is the Democratic incumbent, Senator Christopher Dodd who is the sure loser in 2010.
Laboring under historically low approval ratings partly due to his star turn in Michael Moore's film "Capitalism" where he is seen as a recipient of de facto bribes from high finance crook Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, Dodd would go down to a humiliating defeat in a race with any of the declared Republican candidates.
An indication of the contempt in which he is held, Dodd would lose even to Linda McMahon, whose main claim to legitimacy consists in the reflected glory accruing to spouse, World Wide Wrestling association magnate Vince McMahon.
Given that there have been few occasions when an incumbent has managed to recover from this kind of deficit, it is Dodd's campaign which is now quixotic. And as the Democratic Party's capitulations on the war, its placating of Wall Street, and sky high unemployment rates consign a generation to economic misery, it will become increasingly apparent that any viable challenge to the Republicans will need to come from an independent or third party-a long established tradition in Connecticut.
Nader fits the bill of the outsider candidate just about perfectly.
This is not to say that Nader is by any means a shoe-in, even pitted against Dodd and an addled teabagger as the Republican nominee. The relentless Democratic smear campaigns have taken their toll and the kind of organization which Nader could rely on in previous decades has now been winnowed down to a relatively few hard core supporters.
But there is still plenty of reason to believe that this is one insurgent campaign which could target and defeat the corporate dupology at a particularly vulnerable location and historical juncture.
And there is also plenty of reason for excitement at the prospect of Nader serving in the Senate.
Imagine Nader with subpoena power at Senatorial hearings on military misappropriations, homeland security or military contracting.
Imagine Nader grilling Bernanke, Geithner or any of Obama's corporate friendly appointees to the Departments of Interior, Health and Human Services or Agriculture,
Imagine Nader sponsored legislation on global warming, consumer protection and labor rights.
Imagine Nader able to filibuster (Jimmy Stewart like) a war appropriations supplemental.
Bernie Sanders placing a hold on the Bernanke nomination - now in the process of being overridden by banker BFF Dodd - gives some of us a small taste of Nader as Senator.
If leftists want an investment of time which offers a real bang for the buck, they could do a lot worse than throwing some cash at the Nader campaign and once it gets up and running, to knock on doors, organize house parties, phone bank and receive the abuse of ever more ridiculous Democratic Party hacks and sycophants.
This time, it will be to win.
94 Comments so far
Show AllToo bad Ralph Nader did not run against Joe Lieberman in 2006, as he much worse than Chris Dodd.
Point taken!
NateW December 5th, 2009 2:51 pm, I would have enjoyed the sweet irony of Nader knocking corporate sleazebag and Bush Junior kissyface Lieberman off his throne, but defeating Dodd is almost as good. I just wish Ralph had done something like this years ago.
Ralph would be an excellent Senator.
Having said that, moneyed interests will spend millions upon millions to make sure that Ralph doesn't win. The last thing corporate American wants in the Senate is someone who represents the PUBLIC interest. Connecticut afterall is a State that actually calls Liebermann a Democrat. That's like calling Gandhi a warmonger or Hitler a socialist.
Millions of what? Rotten acorns?
rtdrury,they will spend million$ and millions co-opting "rotten nutmeggers" peace
My God, it would be great if Ralph Nader ran for the Senate. What a boost to the beleaguered Senate progressives to have such a powerful and high-profile voice on the inside. But Nader is not one to compromise his values for the political games - would he be willing to do it?
Please don't run Ralph. You can do a lot more if you aren't serving in a Republican Senate.
Republican or Democrat Senate, it makes no difference. Nader doesn't put party over principles. I'll bet you that as Senator, he can convince even a lot of the staunchest Republican senators to vote to repeal the "Patriot" Act and retract those Wall $treet bailouts on top of forcing the liberal Democrats to fight harder for progressive actions. If you want a good set of Republicans instead of rubberstamp rightwing bots, Nader is the man to knock them out of their stupor and force them to think independently. If Nader wins that senate seat in CT, this will be the first time I can rejoice rather than feel so depressed election after election of watching him and other independents like him getting marginalized.
As I posted to Metal, I just believe that the Republican will take back both the House and the Senate next year and he would find little welcome among the Republicans. They won't need his vote.
I firmly believe the Democratic party is set to marginalize itself for a decade or more.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The GOP and DLC have both marginalized their Parties. Continued support for either Party in the current still unfolding crises depends upon positive results the electorate can see and experience for themselves. That ain't going to happen with either Party in their present incarnations.
Because authentic American progressives apparently will not unite under a new umbrella Party and then reach out to alienated Democrats and independents, the choice is between (1) more pretend democracy that is creeping corporate fascism (and gradually increasing social unrest, homelessness, poverty and crack-downs against the increasingly criminalized poor and disenfranchised), or (2) overt military police State fascism, greatly expanded wars that will fully drag in Iran, Israel, Pakistan, India and probably several former Soviet republics, and extremely harsh domestic crack-downs on dissent and social unrest.
What goes around will, indeed, come around. But I wouldn't crow about Republican or Democratic victories in the current status quo.
I would argue there is a third and forth choice.
Third that we throw the bums out and reestablish a constitutional democracy in our Republic.
Forth that a Third party is established or at least defacto on the right or in the Republican party that is closer to the center.
Corporations will be stopped because we must stop them.
I believe Americans are ready to withdraw our protection and you will indeed see greatly expanded wars that will fully drag in Iran, Israel, Pakistan, India/China, Russia/China and probably several former Soviet republics plus the Far East.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I have never heard any acknowledgment by any paleo-conservative or neo-conservative or Libertarian that America's private corporations should be better regulated or re-regulated, let alone that they are in any way responsible for the problems of the country or even the managerial failures that led to CEO demands for tax-payer bailouts for the auto industry, the big banks and AIG. The Tea Baggers whine about the need for more tax cuts for the themselves and the super rich, not about the failure to investigate, prosecute or re-regulate Wall Street. If anything, the conservative establishment is still shunning attempts to enforce many existing regulations on these entities, let alone the creation of new regulations on them. You are fooling yourself if you believe Libertarians and Republicans and Right-leaning quisling independents will ever express any real support for "stopping corporations." Corporations and the so-called "free market" are at the core of their ideology.
Several members across the American political spectrum are now screaming about the Constitution. What Libertarians and authentic progressives believe about the Constitution are similar in some respects but diametrically opposed in others.
Mainstream Republicans, neo-cons and DLC Dimocrats have little, if any, respect for the Constitution they helped scuttle by their support for the Unitary Executive policies of George W. Bush.
Plenty of the Tea-Baggers don't even understand the history of the original Boston Tea Party in terms of either its local or international sense. They vaguely get the "No taxation without representation!" component, but they've forgotten that King George was using this ill-gotten stamp & tax money to fund foreign wars (many of them secret-sound familiar?)--often using the British East India Tea Company's detachments of British troops and British naval forces--that had no military defense or economic benefits for the American colonies.
Contemporary "Tea Baggers" are rebelling against "liberal socialists" ignoring the fact that doctrinal Socialism does not fork over an entire nation's fiscal largess to privately owned banks, insurance firms and other corporations and let them remain private--as Bush II and Obama both have done. They would do better to rebel against multinational, Mussolini-esque, fascist government/private entities like the British East India Tea Company and its crony profiteers in Parliament. Those types of firms are legion in and around our foreign occupations and do the bidding of both the oil ("Texas Tea") and weapons industry oligarchs while bleeding the country economically dry and, via their natural desire to maintain their very profitable contracts, helping to extend the duration of these conflicts rather then help bring them (and their war profits) to a decisive and expeditious end.
But you tip your hand when you characterize a likely cause for expansion of our Middle Eastern and Central Asian wars as the 'withdrawal of our protection' from the affected regions. Just who, precisely, besides the Sunni and Kurdish minorities in Iraq are we even temporarily "protecting" (bribing in many cases) in these regions and against whom? Our military/mercenary presence in our botched occupations has caused the greatest refugee displacement since World War II. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed and millions upon millions of Iraqis, Afghanis and now Pakistanis have been and still are being displaced. We obliterated their physical and institutional infrastructures (already devastated once by the Soviets in Afghanistan before we got there). We aren't dropping bouquets of roses on the gratefully "protected." Even the Pentagon has admitted the aerial unmanned weapons drones kill more civilians that terrorist and "insurgent" targets.
The protection racket in these regions is military/political extortion regarding oil fields and far-flung, overly vulnerable pipelines whose geography renders them cost-ineffective to secure for any length of time. It could be construed that we are "protecting" Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal, but it would be cheaper to go in in sufficient force to confiscate it and get the hell out of Pakistan than to proceed deeper onto the path upon which Bush II and Obama have put us. There is no true concern for the people of these regions and that is obvious by the lack of any coherent occupation, rebuilding or democratization plans. The fossil fuels and pipelines are the MPIC's prize, but they are not worth either the foreign policy, economic or environmental trouble. The U.S. should be weaning itself from dependence on imported fossil fuels and building a green sustainable economy as a national emergency priority. It should have already begun this in the 1980s. Jimmy Carter tried to warn us and the Republicans, Libertarians and other Right-leaning independents just hooted and howled at him right along with Wall Street, the oil & coal companies and the military-industrial complex.
I see what you are saying and while it could be viewed as true, a deeper look at the issues would suggest not necessarily so. Sure, almost all Republicans will refuse to give Sanders or Nader a chance on bringing single payer health care to the floor but then so too would most Democrats so that doesn't matter. But for repealing the "Patriot" Act and auditing the fed, with the right moves, Nader could use the different reasons conservatives oppose the Fed and the "Patriot" Act and make them reconsider. Better yet, how about bailing out Wall $treet and the big banks? Rounding up the hardcores on both sides to block it can't be as difficult. I know most Senate Republicans would hate to see Nader in the US Senate for reasons of their own but I was thinking on the issues where it would be a case by case basis.
Ralph Nader is a tool. Check out Skeleton Closet. Although he ran as a Green, he never worked directly with the Green Party. He brought his own people. Ralph makes hundreds of thousands a year in speaking fees, gets limo service, and top-flight hotels for his travel to engagements. Ralph is a moneyed interest; he has never agreed to release his tax forms, and claims to spend less than $5,000.00 on his campaigns, to avoid filing FEC forms. He refused to allow some of his magazine employees form a union. While Ralph Nader has gotten great results for consumers, he remains a secretive and vindictive Washington insider. If Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman have outlived their appeal, Connecticut can do better than the ego-maniacal spoiler, Ralph Nader.
Well that didn't take long to dig the corporate Nader-Hater trolls out of their coffins. None of your post is legitimate of course. The greens approached Nader,
Most of Ralph's work were non-profit organizations,
ALL politicians use limos and five star hotels, hell I was just an airline pilot and I used them; big deal.
If we can't get a birth certificate out of OBomber, then forget about private W-2's out of Ralph.
Unions are destructive at small companies but necessary at large ones;
If he was an insider, they would have allowed him in the debates; he is not.
Ralph is frugal with campaign money. Always has been. He used to make the lawyers working for him fill up their pockets with quarters and use the payphones across the street because it was cheaper. This is the guy I want running my government.
Chris Dodd is a bank crook and Sore Loserman a tool of IsNotReal and AIPAC.
Why the hell would anyone begrudge a guy his speaking fee?
I sent Ralph 100 dollars, it's time to do it again.
My vote is for Ralph Nader, doubtless the finest American I've ever seen.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Uh, ThomasJefferson... December 5th, 2009 11:14 pm, Obama's birth certificate has been provided and authenticated. Here are the links to the Snopes and USA Today articles:
"Barack Obama's Birth Certificate"
Snopes.com, August 3, 2009.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp
"Hawaii: Obama Birth Certificate is Real"
USA Today, July 27, 2009.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-07-27-obama-hawaii_N.htm
Uh, No Cigar,
It's dated 2001. (at the bottom says it is OHSM 1.1 (Rev 11/01). Which means the form version was created in 2001. It's a computer copy that easily could have been altered since old Barry's employer was BIC (Business International Corporation) a known CIA front company. CIA frequently altered identities as a routine way of placing operatives. In the 1960's there was no category called "African". It was Caucasian or Negroid or Mongoloid, etc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_International_Corporation
What's likely imho, is that the "birthers" are correct. BO was born out of the US and his mother flew to Honolulu to get a certificate. Otherwise the original would be provided with the 1961 format. Or at least copies of the hospital registry would have been provided. My guess is, it's a great way to control a president. "See it our way, or else your CIA file is put up on the front page tomorrow."
TJ
TJ, try to get a copy of a birth certificate in any US state that is not a copy. Hawaii simply changed their BC copy forms, so that nonsense is meaningless. Obama's BC has be verified by several fact-checking organizations as authentic, as well as by the Republican governor of Hawaii. Or are all of them in the tank for Obama as well as the CIA? As far as Obama's race, that was taken from what the father said, and that's what the hospital wrote down.
You also haven't explained why Obama's birth announcement showed up in the two major Honolulu newspapers of the day. Were they anticipating that Barack H. Obama Jr. would one day run for president and falsifying his birth announcement to make that possible?
You've been getting your information from lawyer-dentist Orly Taitz I bet -- you know, the woman who was easily fooled by a faked Kenyan Obama birth certificate that actually turned out to be an Australian form.
BTW, where exactly did you get this idea that Obama worked for BIC? And please don't even try to provide nutcase Jerome Corsi as a source -- his 'reporting' is a bad joke and he's been discredited numerous times.
RSJ, here it is from his law school files under faculty experience:
http://web.archive.org/webREMOVETHIS
/20010509024017REMOVETHIS
/http://www.law.uchicago.eduREMOVETHIS
/faculty/obama/cv.html
Barack Obama, Senior Lecturer in Law...
Business International Corporation
Writer/Financial Analyst, January 1984 - January 1985
Researched, wrote and edited articles, reports, and how-to manuals on international business and finance for multinational corporations...
Why are you making excuses for and proping-up this chain-smoking government con man? He's reneged on nearly ALL of his campaign promises. If he was legit, he would show us the original birth certificate not something fabricated in 2001. Since he has driven a Republican agenda all the way down the line, it does not surprise me that the Republican Governor in a MIC heavy state like Hawaii might be corrupted to pump out a copy for favors. How about: eternal war and a birth certificate computer entry, in exchange for juicy Navy outsource contracts to a vender of his choice? Do you think billions of dollars can't make that kind of thing happen? You give me a few million dollars and I'll just go away. Let's be realistic here about just how corrupt politicians and managers are. My example, of course, is hypothetical only.
I have read that this whole thing already hit the fan when he came from nowhere to run for Illinois Senator. His answer then was that "Senators do not have to have been born in the United States". Pretty strange response, if true. The CIA has a long history of trying to recruit left-wing supporters to it's cause of global domination. The standard MO is to pick a guy with a skeleton in his closet so he can be controlled later.
The government lied about WMD's, what makes you think they can't alter birth records? Do newspapers run an investigation on each birth pronouncement? No. They take it for granted that the information is correct. They even reported WMD's that did not exist. It's not a conspiracy if we can see the original travel and hospital records. Otherwise, it's what every mother around the world wants for their child eventually: US citizenship. It could easily be a parental effort to obtain US passport capability for their newborn baby. Other tin-foil hat sites quote the grandmother as saying he was born in Kenya. She died during the campaign, was that when all this first came up?
I don't know what the truth is, but I'd like to find out. I don't know who the dentist is you mentioned. As I posted ealier, I got my rumor info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_International_Corporation
Business International Corporation (BI) was a publishing and advisory firm dedicated to assisting American companies in operating abroad. In 1986, Business International was acquired by The Economist Group in London, and eventually merged with The Economist Intelligence Unit. BI has been known to be used as a CIA front company, and was where Barack Obama first worked upon graduating from Columbia University.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Publishing
3 Research and consulting
4 Conferences
5 Clientele
6 Barack Obama
7 CIA
8 References
[edit]History
Founded in 1953 by Eldridge Haynes and his son, Elliott Haynes, BIC initially focused on American companies and started out with a weekly newsletter (called Business International) and a group of key corporate clients. Offices were established overseas, including major regional operations based out of Vienna (East Europe and the USSR) and Hong Kong (Asia-Pacific), and single-country offices (e.g., Rome, Tokyo).
BI eventually became the premier information source on global business with research, advisory functions, conferences and government roundtables in addition to its publications. It was headquartered in New York City, with major offices in Geneva, London, Vienna, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and a network of correspondents across the globe.
In his book The Strawberry Statement, former student protester James Kunen reports a description of Business International by an unnamed Students for a Democratic Society conference attendee in 1968. The attendee, referred to by Kunen as 'the kid', claimed the company offered to finance SDS demonstrations in Chicago. Business International is described as 'the left wing of the ruling class' and as desiring a Gene McCarthy presidency.[1]...
Barack Obama
United States President Barack Obama's first job after graduating from Columbia University was with the company. He held a position as a research associate in its financial services division, where he edited Financing Foreign Operations, a global reference service, and wrote for Business International Money Report, a weekly financial newsletter.
[edit]CIA
The company has been identified as cover organization for the Central Intelligence Agency, e.g. see Lobster Magazine, issue 14 in 1987. According to a lengthy article in the New York Times in 1977, the co-founder of the company told the newspaper that "Eldridge Haynes [the other founder] had provided cover for four CIA employees in various countries between 1955 and 1960".[3]
[edit]References
^ James Simon Kunen (June 1970). The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary. Avon. pp. 130-131. ISBN 0380014475. "At the convention, men from Business International Roundtables"
^ Partnering Agreements
^ 'CIA Established Many Links To Journalists in US and Abroad', New York Times, 27.12.1977
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
MORE EVIDENCE HERE:
Caution: site is slow and hangs
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articlesREMOVETHIS
/2008/08/06/obama_shows_hints_REMOVETHIS
of_his_year_in_global_finance/?page=1
"...Yet unlike many of his peers, Obama did not spend his senior year making plans to attend graduate or professional school. Obama, who expressed interest in becoming a writer, found a job as an editor at Business International Corp. after graduating in 1983.
"I thought that he was going to be a novelist or something like that," said Cathy Lazere, who interviewed Obama and became his immediate supervisor. "He seemed like the type of person who was observing the world and taking it in."
Obama took charge of updating Financing Foreign Operations, a yearbook (annual subscription: $900) for which he edited manuscripts from correspondents in 40 countries. Obama also wrote for Business International Money Report, a newsletter covering currency issues and monetary policy. "He had a good profile for Business International: bright, articulate, a good writer, and a knowledge of world issues and affairs," said Lou Celi, an editor of Obama's.
In "Dreams From My Father," his 1995 memoir, Obama describes being hired by an unnamed "consulting house to multinational corporations."
"LIKE A SPY BEHIND ENEMY LINES, I arrived every day at my mid-Manhattan office and sat at my computer terminal, checking the Reuters machine that blinked bright emerald messages from across the globe," Obama wrote. "Sometimes, coming out of an interview with Japanese financiers or German bond traders, I would catch my reflection in the elevator doors - see myself in a suit and tie, a briefcase in my hand - and for a split second I would imagine myself as a captain of industry."
Those who worked at Business International say Obama's brief account contains inaccuracies or misrepresentations about the company. (Obama has acknowledged fictionalizing narrative elements in the book.) They say that while offering consulting functions to clients, Business International was far more a publishing house than a consulting firm. UNQUOTE
Sounds like a con man to me. Or on the other hand, maybe a CIA spy. Either way, he's not what he pro-ported to be to the public: A LEADER OF CHANGE. He's instead just "Black Bush" with both hands in the international goldman sachs cookie jar.
Don't fall in love with your TV smiling pre-election candidate because that was all snake oil. This is who the real BO is.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
@ ThomasJefferson... December 7th, 2009 10:22 pm (and your previous post):
It's obvious you're deeply in the weeds of this birther conspiracy theory, but I'll briefly try to shed some light and logic on your paranoia.
Yes, Obama did work for BIC right after college in a low-level job, but they did not pay off his student loans, as has been speculated. If that qualifies him as a CIA operative or tool, then, obviously, anyone who has worked for a company that turned out to have had CIA connections must also be an agent or operative. But that is not the case, and I have known several people who worked for companies that turned out to have CIA connections but they never knew it -- to maintain the cover, the agency doesn't inform every single worker of their employer's CIA connection. That would be contrary to the point of having a front company, wouldn't it?
As to your claim that if Obama was 'legit' he would show the original birth certificate -- he doesn't have it. Like everyone else in America, he has a copy. The original is on file with Hawaii and has been verified by the state of Hawaii. If you can prove that they are all puppets in some vast conspiracy, then show some solid evidence, not conjecture. The copy wasn't 'fabricated' in 2001 -- that's idiotic. The form was simply printed in 2001 and that's what the coding at the bottom means. Once again, your notion that the CIA changed it or created it is pure speculation ungrounded in fact. (To see a copy of the birth certificate, go here: http://www.fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate ) The copy of Obama's BC is on precisely the same form any copy requested of a Hawaiian BC in 2008 is printed on.
He didn't 'come from nowhere' to run for senator. I live in Illinois and heard of Obama long before the rest of the country, plus I know some of his relatives and have met him on two occasions. He was a community organizer in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods, and then a State Senator from Hyde Park, and he received a lot of local media coverage for speaking out against the Iraq War in 2002 when that was still politically risky. He went through a grueling nominating process for the US Senate with a better-funded and better-connected candidate, Tom Hynes. Once the nominee, he got lucky that his first GOP opponent, Jack Ryan, self-immolated over a messy divorce scandal with actress Jeri Ryan. Then the laughable Alan Keyes became the Republican candidate and even most IL Republicans couldn't stand the obnoxious carpetbagger Keyes. Obama won that election by a record 70 percent of the vote, and that brought him to the attention of the DNC, both due to his landslide victory and the fact that he was the only black person in the US Senate. He then made a great speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, and that gave him some national notoriety. When Obama first started his run for president, the conventional media wisdom was that he could never beat Hillary Clinton's overwhelming advantage in money and organization and he was wasting his time. Until he won in Iowa, he was not taken seriously as a presidential candidate. Is it your assertion that the CIA rigged all of this, too?
You wrote: "Do newspapers run an investigation on each birth pronouncement? No. They take it for granted that the information is correct." This is absurd -- that means that his parents or grandparents planted the birth announcements back in 1961 in anticipation of Obama running for high office at some time in the future. Aside from that, the Honolulu newspapers also got their info from the hospital.
You wrote: "It's not a conspiracy if we can see the original travel and hospital records." As far as your notion that his mother and father were in Kenya when he was born, that didn't happen, so there are no travel records to see.
You wrote: "Otherwise, it's what every mother around the world wants for their child eventually: US citizenship. It could easily be a parental effort to obtain US passport capability for their newborn baby."
Obviously, you're unaware that, in 1961, Obama's father would be a US citizen by dint of marrying a US citizen. Therefore, wherever Obama was born, he would be born a US citizen, just as John McCain was born a US citizen even though the birth took place in Panama. This fact by itself demolishes all of your birther nonsense -- why try to deceive the world into thinking he was born in Hawaii if he was a US citizen no matter where he was born?
BTW, it's hard to believe that you've never heard of dentist-lawyer-real estate agent-proud birther Orly Taitz. You should Google her: Both she and Philip Berg have had multiple lawsuits over Obama's BC dismissed by various courts, including by Republican-appointed judges.
I don't care what opinion you have of Obama based on fact, but this birther business is nothing but a ludicrous right-wing scam. The real Thomas Jefferson, a rationalist who respected fact and truth, would be ashamed you're misusing his name.
RSJ,
What's wrong with you? You have become so intertwined with the candidate Obomer, that if he were Richard Nixon himself, you would plant a big sloppy kiss on him, and profess your undying love for him and pronounce that anybody who dares ask a question about his past must be a hippie-commie out to get him?
You said:
This is absurd -- that means that his parents or grandparents planted the birth announcements back in 1961 in anticipation of Obama running for high office at some time in the future. Aside from that, the Honolulu newspapers also got their info from the hospital.
You might be right. But why are you so nutso about me asking logical questions as a citizen and asking for documentation? No, It doesn't mean anybody planted anything. It means the CIA seeks out those who have a problem in their past: such as Barak Obama, who was possibly not born in the USA.
I think you are wrong about John McCain. He cannot be president either, since he was BORN IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY.
OK?
DO YOU GET IT NOW?
YOU HAVE TO BE BORN, AT THE TIME YOU EMERGE, (NOT LATER IN HONOLULU) IN THE 50 STATES.
That is my understanding of the law. Territories and KENYA , DO NOT COUNT.
You see, my theory, and granted, in this country of astute Faux News viewers like you, is considered radical, is that neither candidate was eligible, so that the MiC and the Skull and Bones could call the shots.
BUT YOU KNOW EVERYTHING, and you're here to tell us that it is impossible for the CIA to cook up a complex plot like this. Nevermind, the fact that they brought down the USSR, is't apparently IMPOSSIBLE, according to you, that they could salt both sides of the election with PRO WAR candidates when billions in rewards to them were on the line.
You are so gullible imho. I used to work for the MIC as a DOD contractor and you wouldn't believe the shit that went on.
I live overseas, and the US embassy will not automatically grant US citizenship to a baby born half of a foreign national when the birth occurs overseas.
Maybe, the State department is lying to me, and I should cite you as an authority on immigration and naturalization law.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
And you're wrong.
If you marry someone outside the US in their country it doesn't make them a US citizen. I can tell you've never lived outside the US. For it to "count" by US law, a certificate of capacity must be filled out at the US Embassy. But this only verifies the marriage in the eyes of the US. It does not confer citizenship on the foreign national spouse. Of course if you're with the CIA everything is dummied-up and you get in right away, waviing the multi-year probation requirement.
The question you raise is interesting. Because BO's old man was on a student visa to Hawaii, from what I've read. He was an Oil Man, in case you didn't know, he worked overseas for Chevron Oil Company.
Somewhere in the middle of what you and I wrote, is probably the truth.
Best Wishes,
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Your 'understanding' of the law is wrong -- no matter where you are born in the world, if you are born to an American citizen, you are automatically an American citizen. Look it up for yourself. John McCain was eligible to be president, and is an American citizen, even if born on a US Navy base in Panama.
In 1961, it was common for soldiers stationed overseas, for example, to marry foreign nationals -- such as Germans -- and bring them over here after separating from the military. If the marriage is recognized in this country, the foreign national automatically became a US citizen, and any children issuing from that marriage were also US citizens. (Those laws may have been changed since 1961.) Barack Obama Sr. and Stanley Dunham were legally married in this country, he became a US citizen, and any children they had were also US citizens, no matter where in the world they were born. You might check on that before making a fool of yourself with these screwy conspiracy theories.
The rest of your post wasn't worth a response.
Well, it was happy hour here when I made that post, so I apologize.
I did look it up and it's not "automatic" as you assert:
For persons born between December 24, 1952 and November 14, 1986, a person is a U.S. citizen if all of the following are true:
1. One of the person's parents was a U.S. citizen when the person in question was born
2. The citizen parent lived at least ten years in the United States before the child's birth;
3. A minimum of 5 of these 10 years in the United States were after the citizen parent's 14th birthday.
But the Naturalization of a foreigner through marriage overseas does not confer citizenship to the non-US spouse until three to five years of physical presence in the US. Again, if you're DOD, it's different; and the rules could have been different in 1961.
But you have to be a naturalized citizen of the "several STATES" according to the fourteenth amendment, so McCain may have been ineligible to be president:
The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, defines a "Citizen" of the United States, but not necessarily a "natural born Citizen." Its Citizenship Clause provides that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are Citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
Regarding people born at U.S. military bases in foreign countries, current U.S. State Department policy (as codified in the department's Foreign Affairs Manual) reads:
"Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth."[17]
The foregoing section of the FAM only addresses citizenship by jus soli: In short, what is the geographic scope of the "United States"? This does not affect citizenship via jus sanguinis, i.e. those who are born abroad to U.S. citizens and who otherwise meet the qualifications for statutory citizenship.[18] The State Department also asserts that "the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes."[19] This position seems to be at odds with the fact that Congress in 1790 felt it could confer natural born citizenship on those born abroad to American parents. Ultimately, it will take a Supreme Court decision to settle the matter once an American citizen born abroad runs for and wins the presidency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_born_citizen_of_the_United_States
wiki says
Dunham was three months pregnant at the time of her marriage.[1][5] Obama Sr. eventually informed Dunham about his first marriage in Kenya but claimed he was divorced. Years later, she would discover this was false.[14] Obama Sr.'s first wife, Kezia, later said she had granted her consent for him to marry a second wife, in keeping with Luo customs.[16]
Polygamy? This means the Hawaii marriage was not valid....... Nevermind, I don't want to know any more....
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
By your own post you invalidated your entire 'Birther' argument, and I quote, from you:
"1. One of the person's parents was a U.S. citizen when the person in question was born." Stanley Ann Dunham was a US citizen when Barack Obama Jr was born. Case closed.
I know of two separate cases where US citizenship was conferred on a foreign national by marrying an American citizen, and both included a document from the INS certifying that fact. I think I'll take my own experience over your lengthy and often pointless quotations from Wikipedia.
No, it's not case closed. US Citizenship IS NOT Constitutional Citizenship (having been physically born in the 50 States). But your oversimplification of everything (e.g. ALL COWS ARE WHITE) won't let you see that.
Apparently, you're completely unfamiliar with the US Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment states:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized IN THE UNITED STATES, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the STATE wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the SEVERAL STATES according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed....
IF Obarry was born in Kenya, even though his mother is a US citizen, he cannot be president. He can be a senator, but he cannot be president. Arnold Swartenegger is a citizen, but cannot be president. Although I am not a "birther" I see that their argument is valid. Unlike, some infatuated Obamabots I know.
Dogmatism does not become you my friend,
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
ThomasJefferson... December 10th, 2009 1:22 am: the fact remains, in the form of a copy of a valid Hawaii birth certificate, exactly like other Hawaii BC copies of the period issued, with the identical form number on the bottom (check it for yourself on Google images), that Barack H. Obama Jr was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1961. You have presented no solid evidence that contradicts that.
The fact also remains that every single Birther lawsuit in this regard has been thrown out of court, so the case has, literally, been closed. In the last Birther case filed by Orly Taitz, the judge held her in contempt of court and fined her $25,000 for filing frivolous lawsuits of this kind and attempting to deceive the court.
TJ, you put the 'dog' in dogmatic. That you are getting bogged down in esoteric, long-winded diatribes on Constitutional law to try and make some obscure point doesn't change any of these facts. Your posts are a perfect example of that old legal axiom: "When the facts are against you, argue the law."
Without a court willing to examine his application as senator where he reportedly claimed "a senator doesn't have to be born in the US", then I don't see that anything has been proved one way or the other.
Well touché'. I'll concede the argument to you. Congratulations.
I guess we'll just stay in endless war and under the tyranny of both the patriot act and a fictitious federal emergency declared by a con man of no honor who can't keep his campaign promises of "Change you can believe in".
Blind worship of a man, instead of the issues is a sad epithet to the end of democracy and eventually the empire as well.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Perfect comment
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I'd rather see him opposing Joe Lieberman but Chris Dodd also deserves the heave-ho. I think even in a minority Party or as an independent a Nader Senator-ship is overdue. Of the great techno-reformers of politics in all of history very few have gotten close to the center of power. Thomas Jefferson got there but was too much a product of his age and culture to assail slavery and manifest destiny. Cicero became co-Consul, but it was too shortly before the collapse of the Roman Republic. Confucious advised the great but held no great political office himself. Nader epitomizes the best of American progressivism: Efficient, cost-effective, accountable government of, by and for the people. Even if only as a voice for the voiceless (since the mysterious death of Paul Wellstone) we need a man like him in the Senate. Ron Paul is an ignorant yayhoo by comparison.
I'm just of the opinion that the coming minority party he would be serving in will be absolutely powerless. The things the democrats are using and proposin to use can and will be used against them.
He would have no real voice.
Don't forget Cicero also made the mistake of choosing the wrong side. He should have remained neutral!
Ralph Nader may be minority just like Sanders but Nader is more powerful than even Sanders and he can force even the worst of the Republicans to listen to him and possibly have a heart for his ideas. Minority party? Now let's see. The Republicans are in the minority party but they are getting virtually everything they want thanks to plenty of shameless Democrats, DLC and Blue Doggies, rolling over to them.
Nader is Independent and neutral of both parties.
As an independent, Sanders wields a bigger stick than other senators. Everyone knows it. This is why the godzilla monster tries to keep them all stuffed into two little bags.
Are you saying the Demoks NEED the Repuks, to do the dirty work of the empire?
Well, the Democrats want Sarah Palin to be the GOP nominee just to give Obama a second term to do what? Stay the Dubya course? As far as the records show, most Republicans and Democrats use each other to play the DUMBSHOW of looking like two different parties when both of them are shamelessly doing the same thing against the American people. When the Democrats took control of the House and Senate in 2006, they still supported Dubya's empire building shenanigans but they used the Republicans as obstructionists just like the Republicans used the Democrats as obstructionists when they were in power. The truth is both parties are winning at the expense of the electorate losing. There are very few members of either party willing to be truly independent ala Sanders and Nader.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I do not think that Nader, as eloquent as he often is, can force either the best of the current degenerate crop of Republicans or many DLC Democrats to have a heart for his ideas. They have been granted their positions of power precisely because they are ruthlessly mercenary. But he can damn well strip many of these petty naked imperialists of their phony propaganda veneer and shame and humiliate them in the public's eyes--enough to scare some of them into better behavior on certain crucial issues. Even as an independent his mere presence would embolden the handful of reformers left in the Democratic Party like Feingold and Henry Waxman. He would fearlessly blast Republican and Democratic leaders when they go too far. Nader's memory is long. He knows where plenty of bones are buried. He knows how to use Congressional rules, the committee system and how to compel hearings and enforcement of the law. He has successfully fought legislative and legal battles over the regulatory agencies for over 40 years. He has the staff to dig up the dirt on a lot of the pigs in Congress and he is very capable of resiliently and methodically getting results.
That is exactly what I meant by forcing the Democrats and Republicans to open their hearts and minds to his ideas that the public actually approves of. I look at it as somewhat tough love. He may not get to them at first but put them through plenty of fear and thorough embarrassments of their being corporate/military sluts and then they will find themselves forced to listen to his ideas and then finally get it through to them just how far out of touch with the working class. Sanders has tried but I think he needs company and Nader will be happy to team up with Sanders and shoot for the stars.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I guess I'm too cynical in my middle age to believe along with you that these odious pols can be shamed into developing more compassionate mentalities rather than act in favor of some reforms out of fear, but I admire your sentiments and you sound like a very warm, humane and remarkable woman.
Metal, I don't think you are too cynical at all. I thought I said that you were correct in your judgment. It is true that the odious pols can't be shamed without great difficulty. Even with Sanders and Nader, it is true that most of the other 98 will too easily dismiss them. I am hopeful that should Nader make it to senator of CT that his presence will encourage more independent progressives just like him and Sanders in other states to fight to join them and make them relevant. Should that happen, I can see the GOP and Democrats acting like scared business crooks suddenly playing nice to its customers to retain its business. Of course that's no guarantee either given that most GOP and Democrats have a "fixed" heart for the monied elite and throw an occasional bone to its voters to keep them from voting against the status quo. I will confess that my admiration of what Nader has boldly set to accomplish in all these years can put me into more wishful thinking about him. :(
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Nader has only ever run as a candidate for a Third Party and has consistently spoken out against the increasingly conservative, corporatist Democratic Party for over two decades.
The things both the Republican and Democratic Parties are using and proposing can and will be used against them. What is your point here?
Whether or not Nader would have an effective voice as a Senator depends on a number of factors--not all of which are fixed.
Cicero was on the side of the Republic against the dictatorship of the Caesars and their patrician cronies. His record as a Roman magistrate, Consul and litigator speaks for itself and has made him the most studied and most revered Roman Statesman for two millenniums. He might have lived deeper into old age had he remained neutral, but history is filled with the gambles of great men who have gambled and lost. Many throw out their principles along with the toss of the dice. Cicero is still respected because he did not.
My point was that as a back bencher in a minority party that is trying their best to deconstruct democratic process (such as using reconciliation to pass legislation) even such small things as Pelosi demanding the office that by practice and agreement had not been used by the Speaker...all these things can and will be used against them when they are in the minority. And that their arrogance is generating small reason to give them a voice.
Or, "what comes around, goes around"
He would be aligned with the Democrats and certainly would not be welcomed by Republicans. They would have no need of his vote. And as the Republicans will have both the House and Senate I don't think he would have any effect.
Remember the costitution of the Senate then, not exactly a republic. I was just saying that Cicero could easily have had more impact had he held himself aloof from the power grabs.
"His record as a Roman magistrate, Consul and litigator speaks for itself and has made him the most studied and most revered Roman Statesman for two millenniums."
As to that, absolutely. I find both him and his time facinating.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Over the last 50 years reconciliation has routinely been "used to pass legislation" by both dominant Parties. Who gives a crap about Pelosi demanding this or that office except feeble-minded morons and rant radio Limbaugh lemmings?
Do you really think, given the current multiple crises confronting this nation and the current level of corruption and fascist corporatist servitude in both major Parties, that the Republicans will have it any easier with the electorate if they restore (temporarily at best) their majority in 2010 or 2012 than the Dimocrats now do? The GOP is more bereft of ideas than the DLC.
As for "having an effect" in the Congress: Congress is ineffective for anyone but the richest 1.5% of Americans anyway, at least Nader would be the perfect gadfly for it in these times. The mere fact that as a Senator, Ralph Nader would have more access to the media to have his voice heard by millions more Americans would be worth supporting his candidacy in my opinion. He would certainly accomplish more than Joe Lieberman or Chris Dodd in educating the public about what types of legislation to support and why.
Cicero had been too publicly outspoken a supporter of the old Republic and its institutions for too long to be able to hold himself aloof from the only choice at the time: Dictatorship or Republic. His patrician enemies knew what he stood for in the plebeian public's mind. He was doomed from the moment Julius Caesar was assassinated.
"reconciliation" I'm speaking of the 51 votes if they use that. And I will simply suggest to you that you perhaps make the same mistake that most made in writing off the Tea Bag folks as nuts and loons. They weren't, nor were they a bunch of RW radicals. That perhaps some of these things are more important than you are considering. There is enough anger out here and it is growing by leaps and bounds. Neither should you doubt the cost of the arrogance shown by both the leader of the House and Senate.
"(temporarily at best) their majority in 2010 or 2012 than the Dimocrats now do? The GOP is more bereft of ideas than the DLC."
While I can't disagree with you accessment of the idea bag over there, I firmly believe that the Democrats are on a course that will marginalize them for at least a decade if not two. They are steadily turning the country against themselves and anything that smells the least bit left.
I am very concerned because I don't think its business as usual. I think Political Correctness died at Ft Hood and I don't think people understand what the long term effects of that will be. I don't think people that are AGW belivers understand what the e-mails mean or that their lame explanations to this point simply add to the doubt. Nor how damaging the lack of leadership is by Obama.
In other words I believe these idiots have already trashed any hope of getting a liberal agenda. No Single Payer,more help and protection for American workers, etc...
There won't be any surge of third party on the left, but there could be one on the right. Thats where people are getting pushed.
"He would certainly accomplish more than Joe Lieberman or Chris Dodd in educating the public about what types of legislation to support and why."
Can't argue with that!!
"His patrician enemies knew what he stood for in the plebeian public's mind. He was doomed from the moment Julius Caesar was assassinated."
Very true!
I guess you can tell I grow quite concerned.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The Tea Baggers are a very mixed assortment with some highly professional political PR handlers, media spokespersons, ardent paleo-conservatives (the most intelligent of the lot) and oodles of ignoramuses, semi-literates and other brainwashed hicks, gits and medium- to low brow Libertarians. Plenty of constipated middle- and upper-middle-class throwbacks and their dumbass dependents with sufficient money and guns to cause trouble. I've seen enough of their misspelled, unhinged protest signs and misapprehended enemies here in my own State to have any respect for them. Except for their pristinely ruthless, patronizing handlers they are mostly leaderless wolf packs of self-deluded fools who have learned nothing from Bush II's full-spectrum failure. Especially the ones who still believe the GOP is somehow going to cough up a savior for them--same as any Dimocrats who still believe in DLC candidates after Team Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
The danger from the reactionary Right is real and I have acknowledged that in several previous posts going back 3 years. The worst scenario is a charismatic "independent" (basically stone cold killer fascist) demagogue arises, the corporate press ignores his background and funding sources the same way they did for Duhhbya, and the GOP deals him in as a running mate after the primaries. I believe the nat/sec and petrol oligarchs are fully capable of creating such a monster to consolidate the already highly effective corporate coup d'etat they've been slowly unrolling for 15 years now.
If that worst case scenario doesn't happen, though, I don't see either Party dominating or being marginalized for decades at a time as you do. For one thing, Republican demographics are skewing older every election cycle and they have done more policy-wise to alienate an increasingly non-white electorate than they have to broadly reach out to minorities (except Zionist Jews) in any sense. They are too bigoted and they hate the poor in a country in which racial diversity and poverty are growing by leaps and bounds. While Obama is frittering away his brief tremendous support among the youth vote, the GOP lacks even a fading historical track record of supporting the interests of young voters that the increasingly contemptible Democratic Party has.
What I see ahead are either (1) years and years of back & forth between the Parties with Congressional gridlock and dithering that leaves the U.S. in the environmentally sustainable economic dust of most of the rest of the developed world, or (2) a mixture of Brave New World (for the upper-class & rapidly dwindling middle-class) and increasingly Orwellian repression for pretty much everyone else in Amurka.
Mysterious death of Paul Wellstone...Precisely. Nader would be putting his life on the line if he even looked like winning.
Give the voters of Connecticut the Ralph Nader option.
They deserve some means of redemption for giving us Joe Lieberman.
Nader will be a great US Senator.
His candidacy is hope and change I can believe in.
I've heard both Lieberman and Dodd are pretty unpopular among CT Dems right now -- Lieberman for lying to them about supporting health care reform and Dodd for all of his behind-the-curtain chicanery. It's even possible Nader could wrest the Dem nomination from Dodd -- and wouldn't that be a surprise to the DSCC.
He would have to be a registered Democrat to run in the Democratic Primary.