Oh, wait!  Almost forgot the disclaimers!

THIS POST IS SATIRE.  LARRY JOHNSON DID NOT WRITE THIS POST AND THE ONLY RESPONSIBILITY HE BEARS FOR WHAT IS WRITTEN HEREIN IS THAT HE IS SUCH A TOLERANT PERSON THAT HE ALLOWS ME TO POST ON HIS BLOG.  I AM NOT TO BE TAKEN TOO SERIOUSLY BECAUSE, AGAIN, THIS POST IS SATIRE, OR MAYBE SARCASM, OR SOME OF EACH.  PLEASE NOTE:  SOME STATEMENTS MAY BE SERIOUS.  THOSE ARE THE TOUGH ONES TO SPOT.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah…

We already know the Obots are not like normal humans.  They have what might be considered handicaps of a mental nature.  They are mostly young, “hip” people who don’t have much experience in life, or they are older people who still think they are young and hip, like George Clooney.

To understand Obots , you would benefit from first endeavoring to understand the meaning and context of why they consider themselves so “hip.”  This is a challenging task, not just because it’s difficult to understand them, but mostly because it’s so damn difficult to want to understand them.

Most people equate “young and hip” with “cool.”  I have come to think that the phrase “young and hip” can be roughly translated as “smug and obnoxious,” although the meaning can vary in different situations.  “Cool” can also be roughly used to describe someone who is tolerant of dope usages, a participant of dope usage, hangs out with dopers, and/or is a dope.  I used to be hip.  Some of my friends used to be hip too, until they ended up in jails or asylums.  Others took a path similar to mine, which was to get clean, grow up, get a real job, and stop feeling so smugly superior to those who got clean, grew up, and got real jobs.

Other indications that someone might be “hip” may include being “street black” or acting like you are when you’re not, being unworldly (intentionally or not), being other-worldly (like Mork or Zaphod Beeblebrox), being stoned, being anti-establishment (whoops! scratch that one, because the Obama and the Democrats are The Establishment now) , being unemployed by design, and/or being a half-black/half-white Hawaiian guy who went to preppy schools while living with his white grandparents and who appears to be gay or bisexual and has admitted to using illegal drugs on a regular basis in the books he had ghost-written for him by a white terrorist/anarchist while vacationing in Bali on a government grant.  People like that are kind of hip, aren’t they?

Here are some other indications that one may be young and hip.  Going to parties where dope is openly used and/or abused.  Getting stoned alone at home.  Dabbling in the occult.  Being bi-curious because you think it’s the “cool” thing to be.  Hating Republicans.  Wanting to save the world by buying curly light bulbs containing mercury, and drinking endlessly from plastic water bottles and Starbucks cups.   Hating the rich and freely telling everyone you know all about it… on your iPhone, using the Internet to post on Facebook and Twitter, all of which are owned and run by people with no money at all.  (Note: sarcasm).

But the Number One indication that someone is hip:  They still think President Obama is “cool.”  That’s how totally unworldly and uninformed they are.  It’s kind of tragic, when you think about it.  Kind of like still thinking Keith Richards is cool.  Or Keith Olbermann, but that’s a whole ‘nother sickness.

Another thing I’ve noticed.  These young, hip, cool Obots think it’s way cool to seek out blogs that they deem “uncool” and force their coolness upon the old, straight, racist conservatives who don’t want Obama to be re-elected.  Are they motivated by charitable intentions, wishing to spread their gospel of Saint Barack?  Are they trying to save our souls?  Or are they just obnoxious little bastards who think they are so much smarter than those who disagree with their tunnel-vision view of the world?

Do they really think that making specious arguments instead of engaging in logical exchanges makes them look smarter, cooler, hipper, and therefore superior?  Naw, nobody could be that naive?  Could they?

But these people forget one thing.  People like me have an advantage in that we were once young, hip, and cool.  We know what it’s like to be naive yet smugly superior because we’ve already been there, done that, and grew out of it.  They have absolutely no experience with being older, wiser, and more mature.  And that, in a nutshell, is why it is so hard to care enough about them to want to understand them.

It will work for the Democrats; it will hold the partisans. The puzzle is will it work for those few independents in IA, OH, PA, VA who voted for Obama in 2008 because he was “hope and change.”

Proving that Mitt Romney is Beelzebub’s Neighbor is not the strong voice of a leader. It is the commanding voice of an artillery general shouting, “Open fire.”

The additional puzzle is that, presuming POTUS Obama is elected, what remains of the Second Administration for having waged scorched earth on investment and capitalism? The word “fair” is a mantra for the Obama re-elect. Is life “fair”? It’s the weather “fair”? Is aging or malady or even the college loan bill “fair”?

Mitt Romney played a game on an uneven field and won big. The U.S. of 2013 will play the gas on an uneven field (advantage BRICs) and aims to win big.

There is the choice for the IA, OH, PA, VA uncommitted, who likely voted for Obama in 2008. You want a fair portion of less pie? Or do you want to bake the pie and own the bakery and sell a menu of caked goods?

Also, I spoke with Joe Rago, WSJ, and he sees the “healthcare” line slipped into the Loris ad as part of the prep by the Obama team for the SCOTUS decision at the end of June.

Rago says that Chicago will launch all weapons at SCOTUS, calling it a partisan bench of hacks. Edgy.

Andrew Miga, “Plant workers may resurface – Threaten to carry over grudge from ’94 campaign,” The Boston Herald, April 4, 2002.

The striking Indiana paper plant workers who helped sink Mitt Romney’s 1994 Senate run are warning they may now haunt his campaign for governor.

Randy Johnson, a former Ampad worker who was vice president of Local 154 of the United Paperworkers International Union, said there are no plans to campaign against Romney, but he’s leaving the door wide open.

“People in Massachusetts need to know what Romney did to us,” said Johnson. “When it comes down to crunch time, would we go back? Sure. Romney hasn’t heard the last of us.”

Workers blamed Romney for shutting down the Ampad plant in Marion, Ind., three months after he lost to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), eliminating some 200 jobs and sowing misery for hundreds of families.

The Romney camp dismissed Johnson’s threat.

“It’s an old story,” said spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom, stressing Romney was an investor who never ran Ampad. “People know from their own 401K and mutual fund investments that not every company you invest in prospers.”

Romney, he said, has run just three organizations: his venture capital firm Bain Capital, Bain Consulting and the 2002 Winter Olympics.

“Beyond that, he’s an investor in companies that he does not run or control,” added Fehrnstrom.

But union officials said Romney returned to Bain after the Nov. 8 election and was there when the plant closed Feb. 15, 1995.

“They made the decision to close the plant when Romney was back running Bain,” said Johnson. “It still is a mystery to me why he never lifted a finger to settle that strike. We would have just gone away.”

Jerry Rayburn, 33, who lost his $10-per-hour job as an assembly-line paper gluer, said, “He destroyed a lot of people’s lives here,” said “It was horrible.”

Many employees had worked at the plant for decades in low-paying unskilled or semi-skilled jobs.

“People really suffered here,” said Loris Huffman, 66, a tab operator who said she lost $200 a month in lost Social Security benefits due to the closing. “They took away everything. It was really sad.”

Frank Clark, a father of three, lost his $12-an-hour job at Ampad after 20 years at the plant. He spent two years looking for another job and still earns less than his old Ampad salary.

“Some people lost everything and never recovered,” Clark said. “People couldn’t really get back on their feet.”

The Ampad strike – which provided a look at the human toll of a corporate takeover by Romney’s Bain firm – proved pivotal in the 1994 race.

Bain owned 80 percent of Ampad when it bought the Marion plant in July 1994, slashing wages, cutting benefits and sparking a bitter strike. Workers were fired and forced to re-apply for their old jobs at less money.

Kennedy ran TV ads on the plight of the strikers, undercutting Romney’s claim of creating 10,000 jobs at Bain and sapping Romney’s momentum in the polls.

Ampad strikers traveled to Massachusetts, dogging Romney on the campaign trail in that Senate race.

Romney met briefly with some strikers in October, promised to review their complaints and get back to them – but they say he sent only a brief letter after the plant closed.

Romney stressed he played no direct role in Ampad, but two Bain executives were on the five-man Ampad board. Romney took a leave of absence from his Bain CEO post in January 1994 to run for Senate. Bain attorneys told him he could play no role settling the strike.

NOTE FROM BEST SOURCE: Loris Huffman the Avenger, still hit her marks after all these years, the Romney Slayer.

One Obama supporter (he is now posting under the name “lola”) took issue with me comparing what Obama did in blowing the cover of the SEALS with what happened to Valerie Plame. Here’s what “LOLA” posted:

You equate outing an undercover CIA operative working on nuclear proliferation for political payback to making a movie.

You are once again off your rocker.

It is not the first time that Hollywood has made a movie about an American military success. Get over it!

What are you jealous. I bet it just drives you nuts that Obama was able to achieve something that your GOP was not able to do. Now you harp on this bullshit.

No, it is not about jealousy. It is all about Obama blowing key security assets. And here is why.

As most already know Valerie and I were classmates and I, along with other courageous officers who also trained with her (i.e., Jim, Mike, Brent, and T), came out in her defense. What Bush and company did to her was despicable and outrageous. Cheney and his butt boy, Scooter Libby, caused serious damage to our nation’s security. I’m on the record on this and actually spoke to the nation on this matter during a Saturday radio address.

So now we have Captain BoBo Barack. His supporters see no parallels. Well, let me start by saying that I have spent the last 19 years working with U.S. military special operations units training them to be ready to respond to terrorism threats. These units operate behind the shield of secrecy. Why? In part, to protect their identities and in part, to protect the tactics, techniques and procedures they employ (aka TTPs). Normally, they carry out operations and others are given the credit for those operations. These units, by virtue of their professionalism, are loathe to take credit or seek publicity. So, I am not writing about theory. I do know how these units operate and conduct themselves. They are not keen on being used as political props by anyone. They are pure professionals who stand ready to make the ultimate sacrifice.

The operation into Pakistan had a cover story–Bin Laden was killed in a drone strike and his body recovered–which the Obama team could have used to take credit for killing a man who deserved to die. But Obama and his team decided to abandon that cover story when the helicopter crashed shortly after the operation ended. Obama panicked. Pure and simple. Rather than hang tough with the cover story and work on a back up for the downed chopper, Obama at the behest of the sycophants surrounding him rushed to the microphones and announced “we had killed Bin Laden.”

Don’t get me wrong. I welcome the killing of Bin Laden. But going public in this way not only exposed the SEALS but also compromised a U.S. intelligence operation and put critical intelligence assets at risk. We already are seeing one poor Pakistani Doctor being fingered as a CIA operative. He is in jail and in trouble:

A Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency pin down Osama bin Laden’s location under the cover of a vaccination drive was convicted on Wednesday of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a senior official in Pakistan said.

A tribal court here in northwestern Pakistan found the doctor, Dr. Shakil Afridi, guilty of acting against the state, said Mutahir Zeb Khan, the administrator for the Khyber tribal region. Along with the prison term, the court imposed a fine of $3,500. Dr. Afridi, who may appeal the verdict, was then sent to Central Prison in Peshawar.

He had been charged under a British-era regulation for frontier crimes that, unlike the national criminal code, does not carry the death penalty for treason. Under Pakistani penal law, Dr. Afridi almost certainly would have received the death penalty, a Pakistani lawyer said.

Dr. Afridi’s fate has been an added source of tension between Pakistan and the United States, at a time when the countries remain at loggerheads over reopening supply lines through Pakistan to Afghanistan.

That Doctor was put in the trick box by the White House leaks. That is one body in jail because of those stupid, loose lipped assholes. The we have the spectacle of Obama’s chief counter terrorism advisor, John Brennan, getting in front of the press and telling contradictory accounts of what happened. But Brennan did not stop there. He directed the CIA and the Pentagon to cooperate with a Hollywood Director in doing a hagiography to praise the courage and vision of Barack Obama in getting Bin Laden.

That might be fine except it is a lie and it caused significant and lasting damage to our relationship with Pakistan. Obama and his minions going public with this compromised intelligence assets in Pakistan. While the details of this cannot and should not be bandied about in public, the damage is real and it has put our national security objectives in the region at risk.

While Obama’s reason for going public in exposing the top secret unit who carried out the Bin Laden raid is much more banal and much less vicious than the Bush Administration’s outing of Valerie Plame, both are disgusting abuses of power and violation of trust.

So Lola, you are wrong and you don’t know what you are talking about. The damage is significant. Just because you do not know about it and you have not read about it on the front page of the NY Times does not mean it is not real. It is very real and will cost American lives.

This is beyond disgusting. This is as egregious as the decision of the George W. Bush crowd to leak the name of my friend, Valerie Plame. Obama and his principal National Security Staff advisors–John Brennan and Denis McDonough–could not wait to slip top secret details of the operation that ended Bin Laden’s life to Hollywood. Obama and his team deliberately leaked the identity of the top secret unit that carried out the operation. That tidbit was never supposed to make it onto the front pages of America’s newspapers.

But Obama and his team did not give a shit. When it comes to getting re-elected and feeding the ego of this little man from Hawaii, security be damned.

Here are some of the damning documents:

15 Jul Xcript

Pretty self-explanatory. Except here is what you are not told–the Navy SEALS who carried out this mission were forced after the mission to sign specific non-disclosure documents. The White House did not want the SEALS telling what really happened. The White House wanted to shape the story.

So much for intelligence professionals in charge of the CIA. This memo makes it clear that Panetta and his toadies could not wait to spill their guts to the aspiring Hollywood movie maker.

Go to this link and you can read the docs for yourself. They are incredible. When you consider the amount of time that public officials spent pandering to Hollywood assholes on the taxpayer dime you, like me, may be pissed off.

Kathryn Bigelow has one goal in mind–make a successful film and make a lot of money for herself and her studio. I’m all in favor of capitalism, but this is capitalism shrouded in propaganda. Look at the 75 pages of emails sent trying to line up an interview with Michael Vickers (who served previously as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict). If you saw the movie, Charlie Wilson’s War, Vickers was portrayed in that movie as a weapons nerd who played chess. Guess Vickers has decided he can’t wait to perform fellatio on Hollywood biggies.

Page 40 in the 75 page email collection is beyond troubling. The White House and the CIA are in full court press to get the story out on their terms.

WH Okayed

Note, the White House sent the email to the Pentagon on 27 June 2011 telling them that Mark Boal, the screenwriter, would be contacting Mike Vickers. This was done at the direction of the White House. (see here)

I’m still reading through the docs. This is genuinely stunning.

UPDATE–Congress should immediately impeach Michael Vickers. His behavior in this matter is disgusting. It is there in black and white for you to read. Happily divulging information that the SEALS are not allowed to discuss. This was not on his own initiative. It was at the behest of the White House.

One of the worst aspects of being a rabid partisan is the lack of thinking required before forming an opinion. Blind stupid acceptance of one party over another should be appalling to any “thinking” adult.

Blind rabid partisanship skips the thinking part of forming an opinion and goes directly to the acceptance part. Often knee-jerk acceptance because whatever we “heard” feeds into our preconceived notions. Preconceived notions that tell you that your side is right and their side is wrong are based on nothing more than some sound bites, attack ads, talking points and the “facts” saying what you want to hear. We are all guilty of this from time to time.

My loathing for the Democrat Party has become so deep … and so wide that I have to rein myself in lest I accept that they, those evil Democrats, are the cause of all the ills of the world. Especially the triumvirate of Obama-Reid-Pelosi. I have a special loathing for those three and must guard against believing them guilty of any perfidy.

Having been a Democrat for 40+ years, I cannot, will not, forgive them, or myself, for the lies they told me and that I accepted. My critical thinking goes into hibernation at even the mention of those three names. My knee-jerk response goes into effect with shameful regularity. I can excuse that by saying that they deserve it. That’s dandy except them deservingit doesn’t excuse me from using my critical thinking skills. My pathetic excuse is just that, pathetic. That’s the “equivalency” excuse that my mother didn’t accept when I was a kid. Shame on me for using it now.

Information coming only from one point of view can be and often is flawed.  I think of it as the lazy person’s lack of thinking opinion, an opinion without the difficulty of sifting through facts. Note to those that don’t know: attack ads are not facts and talking points are less than trustworthy. Wishful thinking is not thinking; it’s just wishing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I have no doubt that some of the opinions I have formed over the years are wrong. I have no doubt that in some/many instances I have let my “druthers” influence my critical thinking. I will have to try harder.

It stands to reason that I am not always right and that I have not always gotten good information. An opinion based on faulty information must be flawed. A good solid cynicism is of some help in not being too wrong too often. Also a certain humility — humility that tells you that much as you might wish you “knew” everything, you do not. I know that will surprise many.

Therefore, when I hear some “new” and improved talking point, from either party, I am skeptical. I find skepticism a wonderful tool in helping me to do some critical thinking. I don’t trust either party nor do I trust the media.

Beyond that I do not currently, and never will, trust information coming from known liars. That covers most if not all politicians and presstitutes. Want proof? Just check for yourself when some pol or pundit makes a statement that you find a tad hyperbolic.

Example: Anyone saying that the other party wants to starve old people and children or that they, those evil others, desire dirty air and water. Such hyperbolic statements don’t pass the sniff test, and it is critical thinking tells you that.

Beyond that, serial liars are a waste of time. Experience tells me that if they have lied many times, the odds are they will lie again. Why waste time with a liar? If Obama says that the sun is rising in the east I would have to look out my east window to make sure. He’s lied so often that I cannot understand how anyone could accept anything he says.

 Though media like to refer to “lies” as “spin,” I reject that definition for the one I learned as a child. A lie is not spin. A lie is a lie. Calling it a fire truck doesn’t make it one.

Thus you have to try to select the liars who don’t lie as often as the other liars. No wonder so many take the easy road and just pick a team and stick with them no matter what they do. Thinking is hard work, and finding honest information is both difficult and time-consuming. Many have neither the time nor the energy to do what is necessary to find the truth.

Finding the information to make an honest decision, or form and honest opinion, shouldn’t be so difficult. In a free society we should have a media that informs us. Unfortunately many in our media have decided that their job is to promote their ideology instead of facts. They have abdicated information for ideology. They have taken sides.

 When the refs pick teams, we all lose. Even the pontificating blowhard at the end of the bar, or the lying POS who is on the other side of the video cam, is so often in error yet never loses to a healthy dollop of scrutiny. Soon they are lying more to protect their lies and running faster and lying more just to stay in place.

My Mother could have warned them what could happen. She certainly warned me — with mouthfuls of Ivory soap and swats to the seat of the problem. What wouldn’t you give to see a pol’s mouth washed out with soap every time they lied? Quick! Buy stock in Ivory Soap!

We private citizens, have limited experience and resources cannot possibly “investigate” to find the truth. When media refuses to do it we are left to try to find out as much as we can as best we can. We pan for nuggets of truth in a polluted stream. It’s a miracle we find any truth at all.

Without this wonder called the Internet we would never know more than our newsies want us to know. I have no doubt they don’t see their own partisanship and bias, and they retain their belief that what they report or don’t report is “for our own good” or the perceived good of the country. A greater good decided by a corrupt entity seems less than “great” or “good” to me. But then, as I’ve explained, I’m an old cynic.

I am an old cynic who tries, and often fails, to use critical thinking. Sometimes I am successful and sometimes not. The difference between me and far too many others is that I try.   Self-respect demands that I do.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Who is J. E. Mathieson?

If you’re thinking “I’ve never seen J. E. Mathieson on NQ!” you would be partially right.  But, since I don’t want to spoil your fun in guessing her NQ pseudonym in comments, I will simply share some of her professional background and give you some clues.

J. (Jean) E. Mathieson is a pioneer in Canadian animation industry, being the first woman to combine the roles of writer, director, and producer of animation.  Together with her writer/artist partner Al Guest, Jean helped found The Canadian Animation Producers Association and “produced [mostly in children's programing] more than 4,000 television commercials, theatrical shorts, television series and sponsored films, winning more than 100 awards.”  The pair now live in California and are working on their second book on the Winnipeg/Chicago connection during Prohibition.

So, what is Passamezzo?

The subtitle, “Who is trying to kill the boss of bosses,” clues you into its thriller plot, and the gangster hat on the cover points you to its Canadian crime family subject.  The authors J. E. Mathieson and A. A. Guest describe their riveting, well-written and thoroughly researched novel as a “docu-novel” (fictionalization of real incidents) and “pure escapism.”

But, like the hidden subtleties in the dramatic pageantry of the 16th century Italian music and dance from which it gets its name, this Passamezzo is much more than the stereotypical “Godfather” thriller glorifying gratuitous violence, petty revenge, and twisted egos.

– It is a rich generational saga of the Falcone family that tells of a father’s artistry savaged by poverty and petty ruthlessness; a son’s intelligence and compassion subverted by revenge and power; and a grandson’s love crushed by corruption and the need for justice and redemption.

– It is a compelling story of survival amid Toronto’s immigrant ghetto and the brutal corruption during a period of Canadian (and U.S.) history when worker rights and human rights were virtually unknown and rampant racial discrimination and fears encompassed the use of eugenics (forced sterilization) and immigrant interment during WWI and WWII.

– It is a gripping political thriller about the rise of crime families and the use of labor unions and violence to fight against the corruption, tyranny, and brutality of the “Inglese.” And how the extortion of  union “fees” and labor fueled the power of crime families and their growth into business and government.

– It is a brutal cautionary tale that we see echoed in the rise of financial institutions, mega corporations and the military-industrial complex, of what happens when we allow money, greed, and corruption to be the bases of our society and when we empower our fears to point where the rights, livelihoods and even lives of others become merely the most expendable parts of our economy and the costs of doing business.

To whom would I recommend this?

To those who love crime action and all things Mafia, you will relish “Passamezzo” for its dramatic entertainment.  To those who love history, law and order, or come from poor, immigrant laborer stock (mine were Italian quarrymen of the same era as the Falcones, but who successfully escaped via education), you will savor “Passamezzo” for its rich perspective and insights.   To those who are movie gods, you would be wise to share “Passamezzo” in all its depth and complexity on the big screen.

Final words?

“Bravo!” to J. E. Mathieson and A. A. Guest.  And, as I hold out my ever-hungry Kindle, “More, please!”

Normal method of applying petard (explosive device) to gate of fortress. The fuse has just been lit and the Fusilier is retreating quickly in order not to be 'hoist with his own petard'. Stipple engraving c1800

We’ve often heard, and just as often seen it misused and misunderstood, the phrase “hoisted on his own petard.” 

Perhaps we find this phrase so amusing because we’ve heard that the word “petard” comes from the French word for “fart.” 

But in this phrase the word “petard” refers to a primitive exploding device that would later become known as a bomb.  The original petard was a simple box of gunpowder that was placed against a door and ignited, for the purpose of creating an opening through which soldiers could gain entrance to attack.

Therefore, the phrase “hoisted on (or by) his own petard” means that one has been blown up (that is, hoisted or lifted) by his own bomb.  I believe that when we hear that phrase nowadays, we tend to picture someone humiliating himself by farting in a social situation.  Or better yet, …

… farting so forcefully that they are literally raised in their chair by the force of the expulsion of gas.  But the real meaning is more accurately described by a similar phrase, “blew up in his own face,” especially as in the case of a saboteur or terrorist having a bomb explode as they were transporting or planting it, doing the most damage to himself.

In any case, this phrase, in any of its interpretations, is what comes to mind when I see Republicans or other political opponents of President Barack Obama espousing the “birther” argument that Obama is not legally qualified to be President because he is not a “natural born citizen” of the United States, as required, but not defined, by the Constitution.  I don’t know where he was born, or who his really daddy is, but I’m not about to go on record as a birther.

I want to urge those who wish to be taken seriously: “Don’t take the bait.”  By taking up the birther argument, you are playing right into Obama’s hands.  It just makes you look like a kook, which is exactly what his team wants.

Back in 2008, we had a lot of people studying his Certificate of Live Birth, a virtually meaningless document that proved nothing.  And many people tried so hard to read too much into it, and they just ended up looking foolish.  Like kooks.

Then, about a year ago, in April 2011, Obama released his so-called “long form Birth Certificate,” supposedly to stop the conspiracy theories about his birth.  But here’s where you need to think like a true strategist.  The white house could have released a simple one-layer image, like the many images on the internet.  It could have been a GIF, JPEG,

TIF, or other type of image file… what you would expect if there was an actual photo taken of the birth certificate.  Instead, they release a multi-layered PDF, which has the look of a forgery before the image is flattened or has the layers merged into one image.  To anyone who has worked with Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator, both of which use multiple layers of images which are usually saved to a single-layer PDF for the “finished product,” you just have to ask, “What were they thinking?”

I mean REALLY!  Are they such amateurs that they go to all this trouble to create a multi-layered forged birth certificate, and then FORGET to merge the layers for the version they put on the Internet?  Really?  You think they are that stupid?  I don’t.  I think they knew exactly what they were doing.  They were just yanking the chains of the birthers.  Just reviving the argument that has worked so well for them.  With each new document the birthers come up with, the more normal, uncurious people just laugh them off as kooks.

This is why you haven’t seen Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or John McCain or Mitt Romney jumping on the birther bandwagon.  They know exactly how that would make them look.  You got it.  Like kooks.

A few days ago, a promotional pamphlet hit the blogosphere from Barack Obama’s old book publicist.  In it, his bio described his as “born in Kenya.”  That was the meme Obama wanted for himself before he decided to take a serious run at the presidency.  Back then, it seemed exotic to be from Kenya.  It bolstered his “African” creds, instead of the spoiled rich half-white kid raised by his white family in the vacation paradise of Hawaii.  Who’s going to take an Oreo from Hawaii seriously on African-American issues?  Since he was not descended from American slaves, he decided to be a second-generation African.

At least, this is the way it appears to me and many others.  The reality of his birth and upbringing didn’t fit the way he wanted to be perceived in the black communities, so he reinvented himself.  Then when he decided to run for president, he had to reinvent himself again, or uninvent himself.

You know something?  It has always been my opinion that Barack Obama never took himself seriously as a presidential candidate in the early run-up to the 2008 election.  I believe he was just trying to make a name for himself like so many other also-rans, like Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann, and others you would never have heard of if they hadn’t decided to run for president.  I truly believe Obama was as surprised as anyone that his candidacy took off and overcame the juggernaut Hillary Clinton.  I think that up until the Iowa Caucuses in January of 2008, he figured he’d be doing good to come in third behind Clinton and Edwards.  Then, from out of nowhere, he won the frickin’ lottery.  Oops!

It probably never occurred to him until the early primaries that his “Natural Born Citizen” status would ever become a serious issue.  I think all politicians think they are squeaky clean until the opposition starts digging up their backgrounds.  Who in their right minds would ever think that a boyhood fist fight would ever pop up to haunt a candidate for office?  Or an old bookseller’s blurb?  Whodda thunk it?

So this last week, we’ve all been delighted to see this old book publisher’s pamphlet showing Barack Obama’s biography claiming he was born in Kenya.  But as No Quarter’s Larry Johnson and others have been careful to point out, it was probably a lie that Obama was telling back then to make himself appear more interesting.  And it may well be that he used a false claim of foreign birth for other reasons, like college enrollment or visiting POCKisTAWN with his gay lover.

Yes, I still make fun of Obama as being a foreign-born closeted-homosexual phony intellectual gasbag.  Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those things.  It’s just his lying about it that bugs me.

So we are all still left wondering if Obama is legally unqualified to hold the office of President.  We may never know.  I guess I’d have to say that doesn’t matter at this point.  Now that he’s been in office nearly four years, it doesn’t seem to matter to anyone except the die-hard birthers, and that’s mostly so they can finally say “HAH!  TOLD YOU SO!!”

But if you were running against him in an election, as John McCain did and Mitt Romney will, would you really want to win it by a technical foul on Obama’s part?  Would you want your claim to the Presidency muddied by the implication that you only won because Obama got disqualified?  Would you want that to be your legacy?  I don’t think so.

The political and legal wrangling over this issue would fill volumes, so I don’t intend to address the legal meanings of the requirement, definitions inherent to it, or claims that Obama does not meet that requirement.  My personal opinions are all over the road on this subject.  I can certainly see that there is plenty of circumstantial and perhaps conclusive evidence that he does not meet that constitutional requirement, but as he has already been President for nearly four years, I feel the point is moot (not “mute” as some say, which makes me want to throttle them).

Even if we had absolute, irrefutable evidence that Obama was born in Kenya, as he apparently claimed prior to 2007, it would do no good to argue the point because public opinion is against you.  Since we all know how easily documents can be forged, especially digital documents on the Internet, no document is going to convince the majority.  It just makes you another “birther,” which has become synonymous with “conspiracy nut.”

A birther is the political equivalent of a “truther,” one who believes the President George W. Bush administration had a role in the 9/11 attacks.  Birthers are likened to people who believe in UFO abductions, people who believe in Bigfoot, people who think the CIA has put listening devices in their dental work, and people who believe the world is actually being run by a secret cabal of super-wealthy power brokers.  Of course, all of the above have true believers that there are strong elements of truth to them, but none has been proven so far.

And by the way, I have seen plenty of evidence that parts of the 9/11 attacks are different than what the government and media would have us believe.  I am pretty firmly convinced that some, if not all, of the building collapses at the World Trade Center were controlled demolitions.  It seems logical to me that government officials might feel it would be better to bring those towers down in a controlled way rather than let them fall sideways, spreading flaming debris for blocks.  I could easily be persuaded that if our government knew there were fully-fueled jetliners in the air around Washington, on the verge of being used as guided missiles, that the military would have jets in the air as fast as we could scramble them.  But once they are in the air and shadowing the jetliners, what would be their orders?  Just hang back and watch?  It sounds plausible to me that their orders would be to bring them down in an unpopulated area — like rural Pennsylvania. I’m only saying, it sounds plausible.

Speaking of unpopulated areas, I think it’s pretty safe to say that if I were a UFO navigator or commander, I would find it pretty easy to avoid being seen up close and personal in highly populated areas.  And if I wanted to clandestinely kidnap human specimens for my biological experiments, I’d find it much easier and safer to do so out in the boonies.  And if I was a Bigfoot, or any form of non-human primate, I would probably stay away from humans as much as possible, and I’d probably find that a pretty easy thing to do, given all the wilderness on this continent and others.

And I think we all pretty much know that the world is being run by the secret societies of the super-wealthy crowd.  We don’t have any real proof, but it just makes so much sense!  It has to be that way!

But I don’t buy the thing about the CIA putting listening devices in my fillings.  If that were true, they’d have locked me up a long time ago!!

Trite of Team Obama to start with, and now odd in extreme after the Rovians caught out the junior league hagiographers. Why did Team Obama invite this mockery?

Was there a review process? Was Axelrod informed?

It is a minor unforced error.

However, it suggests that Team Obama is deaf inside the bubbles of the White House and Chicago.

Hints that there will be many more unforced errors, perhaps of significant rank.

Penn, like me, despises hypocrisy.

I agree totally with Penn. What do you think?

(Full disclosure, I paid to see Penn and Teller in Vegas in January. Worth every dollar.)

Dropping a festering turd like that in the public policy punchbowl is tough to match, but by golly, Barack Hussein Obama is working his damnedest to erase the memory of Bush’s incompetence and replace it with his own insane legacy. This weekend’s failed summit in Chicago is a case in point. First off the G-8 could not agree on a response to the impending collapse of the Euro. You might ask, “Why should we care?”

Very simple. If Europe implodes, then the world will be plunged into a depression that will surpass the debacle of 2008. In the “good old days” the United States had some power, clout and influence. Not this time. All the world got was a whiny, petulant man-child too busy preening and posturing to actually risk demonstrating an inkling of leadership.

The problems on the international agenda are complex and far reaching. The ill-advised promotion of the “Arab Spring” has given new life to the very Islamic extremists that produced the attacks of 9-11. Obama’s answer to this? Try to empower them. The United State currently is backing some radical Islamist groups that are closely affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq.

In Afghanistan? Barack has played his hand too early. He showed his trump cards to the enemy. He has promised to abandon the country by 2014 and given the Taliban a date for preparing to retake the country where we have spent billions trying to move them from the 13th to the 14th Century.

Whoops. Forgot to mention Egypt. Islamists opposed to preserving Israel’s borders are on the verge of winning the upcoming Presidential election. They are already ahead in absentee ballots. Although the military may try to steal the vote, the outcome will only energize the extremists and throw Egypt into even more turmoil.

As far as international economics are concerned, the Obama economic and foreign policies are simultaneously promoting the radical Sunni extremists while helping, via oil sanctions on Iran, to drive the price of oil up. This further curtails economic growth and promotes decline among key European and Southeast Asian countries.

Obama has become an international joke. But he ain’t funny. In the process he is helping weaken American beyond the damage inflicted by George W. Heck of a job, bucko.

So, here’s my proposed selection of the best.

I don’t have these in order of preference.

[]

Apart from the cute factor of the singers, I think the U.S. anthem is solid musically (but tough to sing). Even if I was not a native American, I’d put this in the top five.

[]

And if you think I am an anti-Semite, think again. Israel’s anthem is musically one of the most beautiful, easy to sing and inspiring lyrics. My only criticism, it runs out of gas and becomes a tad repetitive.

From a strictly musical and inspirational standpoint, the French Marseillaise is dandy. But the lyrics? Jesus. Do the French seriously understand what they are singing.

Ahh, Germany. When it comes to beer and schnitzel and pretzels they are number one. Pretty good cars too, come to think of it. That WW II thing still seems to leave a lingering bad taste but, for musical inspiration this anthem is still one of the tops. Joseph Haydn knew how to pen a tune.

Call me commie, but the best one in my book belongs to Russia. Music and lyrics make you ready to conquer the world.

Last, but maybe not least, Canada. The neighbors to the north, especially with their surging currency, have something to sing about.

So, did I neglect some deserving country? I don’t think so, but it is your turn to opine.

Oh. What did Cooper do? Again? You’ll recall — your comments at the time sure indicated that you’d remember — this post, “CNN’s Cooper Criticizes MoveOn.org’s Attacks on GOP’s “War on Women.”

Unfortunately, the AC360 clip below demonstrates that Cooper’s underlings do not share (or worse, do not notice) Cooper’s new priorities. The video omits Cooper’s opening salvo from the #1 story, although Cooper tries hard to keep it going with the two interviewees.

Cooper needs to stand over the video editor. As it is now, only a tiny number who watched the show will know what Cooper said. If a dozen more watch the run-of-the-mill video, they’ll not find out how Cooper up-ended the media pack formula. Unless they check the transcript. But whatever for? To right that wrong, I’ve put Cooper’s opening, in full, above the video.

Good evening, everyone. We begin tonight “Keeping Them Honest” with a question of whether President Obama is trying to have it both ways. Attacking leaders of companies that make millions by taking over other companies and sometimes putting average Americans out of work. When in the same time President Obama racks up millions for his campaign courtesy of the very same type of corporate leaders.

This week it even happened on the same day. A new ad from the Obama campaign is attacking Mitt Romney for his work as the founder and head of Bain Capital, a private equity firm whose business dealings sometimes led to people losing their jobs. That’s what happened at the Kansas City Steel Mill. That’s the focus of the new Obama campaign ad, featuring workers who say that Mitt Romney and his company ruined their lives. This ad was released yesterday. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN WISEMAN, STEELWORKER, 28 YEARS: Having a good-paying job that you can support and raise a family on is hugely important. That stopped with the sale of the plant to Bain Capital.

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know how business works. I know why jobs come and why they go.

DAVID FOSTER, LEAD NEGOTIATOR FOR WORKERS, GST STEEL: Bain Capital was the majority owner. They were responsible. Mitt Romney was deeply involved in the influence that he exorcised over these companies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They made as much money off it as they could. And they closed it down. They filed for bankruptcy without any concern for the families of communities.

JACOB COB, STEELWORKER, 31 YEARS: They were like a vampire. They came in and sucked the life out of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Vampire that came in and sucked the life out of us. Pretty strong words. The ad is clearly designed to tug on emotions to paint Mitt Romney as a heartless corporate raider who cared nothing for the workers at that steel mill. Now the Romney campaign points out that Romney wasn’t even actively managing Bain when that steel plant closed.

Now you can make the argument this ad is fair game since Mitt Romney has portrayed his time at Bain is a time of creating jobs. He’s repeatedly said he created jobs even though the goal of Bain Capital was not job creation, it was money creation for its investors. That’s what private equity is all about.

What’s interesting, however, is the Obama campaign ad came out at about 6:00 a.m. yesterday. At about 6:00 p.m. yesterday, President Obama was in New York at a private fundraiser at the home of this man named Tony James. He’s the president of Blackstone which is a private equity firm. A private equity firm that has, just like Bain, made business deals that have shut down factories, put people out of work. Two hundred and 70 workers at a food plant, 800 at a travel services company. The list goes on and on.

Now Blackstone and Bain have done business together, teaming up to invest in the same companies. The point is, if the head of Bain is labeled a vampire, shouldn’t the Obama campaign also have somebody labeled the head of Blackstone as one as well?

Now there are arguments to be made about whether what private equity firms do is good or bad. We’ll leave that for you to decide. But “Keeping Them Honest,” isn’t it disingenuous to try to drive a stake into the corporate heart of the one so-called vampire in the morning and then sit down and eat a steak with another vampire at night?

We don’t know if they actually served steak at Tony James’ fundraiser for the president but you get the point. What we do know is that 60 people paid $35,800 a plate for a grand total of more than $2 million. The Romney campaign did not waste any time striking back against the new Obama campaign ad releasing its own ad also using somber music, slow motion, and steel workers.

It focuses on another company called Steel Dynamics that Bain invested in under Romney’s guidance with, they claimed, happier results.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When others shied away, Mitt Romney’s private sector leadership team stepped in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Building a dream with over 6,000 employees today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If it wasn’t for a company like Steel Dynamic, this county wouldn’t have a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: American workers in a small town proving that anything is possible in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Anything is possible in America. And certainly anything goes in American politics in an election year.

Joining me now is CNN political contributor Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary for George — President George W. Bush, and Democratic strategist, Cornell Belcher, who’s a pollster and strategist for the Obama 2012 campaign.

So, Cornell, the fact the campaign releases this video slamming Romney for his time at Bain the same the president is at this fundraiser hosted by a private equity giant, isn’t that kind of hypocritical?

[HERE IS THE VIDEO of the INTERVIEWS OF FLEISCHER AND BELCHER -- any, I repeat (for effect), that anyone who sees only this video below will NEVER KNOW ABOUT ALL THAT ANDERSON COOPER SAID and DEMONSTRATED ABOVE.]

_______________________________

* FOOTNOTE in the first paragraph.

[Nobody ever changes.] Ever. Except … for a minority who consciously force themselves to alter their behavior, at least for a while and, only under extreme pressure, for the rest of their lives — at most one percent of them. Now that’s a real 1% that can be tracked.

Take a diabetic; how many of them ever stay on their critically important special diet at all times, the rest of their lives? How many alcoholics join A.A. and never drink again? How many men and women who cheat decide to be faithful to their spouses and never cheat again? Worse, how many pedophiles ever make themselves care about their victims more than their own desires?

What makes Anderson Cooper’s altered behavior so exceptional is that he gets no reward and, in fact, surely loses more viewers than he could possibly gain (and the number of new viewers is exactly, indisputably ZERO). All of his staff, who not only are disappointed in him but also erase any important evidence that he’s changed.

Then there are ALL of his friends “in real life,” and anyone who “loves” him — and only if any of them actually watch his show — are embarrassed to be seen with him. (Embarrassed? Is that too superficial for you? Oh no it’s not. Ask Barry Scheck of The Innocence Project how many of his actually innocent clients do not lose their spouses, their children, their relatives, their boyfriends or girlfriends, their former co-workers and bosses, their once-friendly neighbors? No matter that he/she is “actually innocent.” The taint of prison forever stains them because they know that their spouse/friend/lover/co-worker has been disfigured, abused, raped, humiliated by other prisoners and has been dehumanized by the guards, wardens — by all who have absolute power over him/her.)

Cooper is now seen as unreliable.

He has defended the enemy.

He has spoken for those who are not allowed a real voice in the media, except as is necessary to make a point to denigrate the enemy.

His rivals, well the few that ever bother to watch AC360, are smiling.

Your turn …

The “why” is quite simple–he wanted to persuade the lefties in Chicago politics that they had a genuine, black African ready to run for office. You can’t get more authentic than that. It’s like a white person trying to convince others that she is a Cheerokee Injun. Frankly, I’m stunned that most of this did not come out in 2008. It is outrageous. Barack Obama lied his half-white ass off. Black like him? Fuck him and his lies.

As I noted in this morning’s post, the lie started in earnest in 1991 when he allowed his publicist to put out the claim:

Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation. He served as project coordinator in Harlem for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and was Executive Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago’s South Side. His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White.

Do you really understand how stunning this is?

If you have ever appeared as a pundit on television, written an op-ed for the New York Times or written a book (or thought about writing a book), you are keenly interested in what people saying and writing about you. When someone like Acton & Dystel put out a book with your bio prominently displayed you can bet your half-white ass that you get copies of that book and spread it around to family and friends.

Barack Obama and his team think you are a fucking moron. They think they can tell you, “OOPS, it was a simple editorial error.” Well, that steaming turd might float in a bowl of sand, but not here. That mistake was not a one time thing. It was not a one week or one month event. It lasted 16 years.

In 1998, seven years later (and with an updated blurb no less) Obama was still “born in Kenya.”

Once again, you are asked to believe that a professional publicist does not verify facts with his or her client. Really? They are that incompetent? Don’t buy that crap sandwich for a second.

Back to archive.org. They did it again in 2005:

And also in 2007:

Each time, “OBAMA BORN IN KENYA.”

Since 1998 the internet has been available. Barack Obama was a man on the make and positioning himself for great things. He had a story to tell and damn well ensured that folks in Chicago knew that he was international guy, who was BORN IN KENYA.

Even the AP got into the act. In 2004 they headlined Obama’s Kenyan roots with this opening salvo:

Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.

Once is a mistake. Five times is a goddamned pattern of behavior. The question needs to be asked over and over, “WHY DID BARACK OBAMA CLAIM FOR SIXTEEN YEARS THAT HE WAS BORN IN KENYA?”

Why? I’m waiting till hell freezes over.

Is this cool or what?

It is time for the press to fully explore why Obama lied about being adopted by Lolo Soetoro and why he has covered up his trip years ago to Pakistan.

Do I believe he’s a closet muslim?

NO, and HELL NO!! He is an arrogant, self-absorbed narcissist of the first order and is an intellectual chameleon.

Breitbart’s site has the full story. Take time to read it.

This is great, though. It will force his campaign to deal with the whole Kenya matter.

The literary agent is out with a bullshit statement:

“You’re undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me — an agency assistant at the time. There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.”

Really? Why did she ASSUME, in the first place, that Obama was born in Kenya? How do you make a fucking mistake like that? Is she a moron? Did she just make it up? Or did she ask him?

This thing needs some answers.