Bad Day for the Birthers

Where's the birth certificate? Oh, right, there it is.

Last week I documented a right-wing phenomenon known as the "Birther" movement. The fringe, nut-job movement enjoyed about a week of mainstream media recognition. Albeit more about spectacle than legitimacy, they did get mainstream support from CNN's resident xenophobe Lou Dobbs, until Dobbs was instructed to drop the story by CNN management.

On Monday, the Birthers were dealt two severe blows to their already futile cause. First, the House of Representatives passed a resolution containing the provision, “Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii.” The resolution passed by a vote of 378-0, with four of the movement's biggest supporters in congress voting with the majority.

Also on Monday, the State of Hawaii certified the birth of Barack Obama in Hawaii, even though they had already this prior to the 2008 presidential election. Evidently beseiged with requests from media outlets and concerned citizens, the State Department of Health again confirmed that Obama "was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen."

So the question remains: Will double whammy finally put an end to the Birthers? If I know anything about right-wing nutjobs, I'm inclined to believe they will endure. I think this will probably put an end to the movement's support in congress as well as much of the mainstream media coverage. But the movement's most ardent believers won't be deterred by these latest realities because the Birther movement is not based in reality. The Birthers exist in a right-wing fantasy world, where George W. Bush was our greatest president, Sarah Palin is a rising political star, and Barack Obama is a radical Muslim terrorist from Kenya. As long as people are uncomfortable with Barack Obama being president they will continue support outrageous conspiracy theories in an attempt to somehow invalidate the Obama presidency.

Are you F#!&ING serious, people???

I apologize for the blunt and rather crass title of this post, but enough is fucking enough. Those who inhabit the right side of the political spectrum in this country are seemingly getting crazier by the day. For the first time in 15 years, the United States has a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in Congress hell-bent on actually fixing some of the country's problems, and righty is not happy about it.


The latest lunacy advanced by the right is the notion that Barack Obama is somehow not a legitimate U.S. citizen, and thus ineligible to be President. Right-wing muckraker Jerome Corsi and the conservative website World Net Daily have led the crusade to invalidate the Obama presidency. While both sources of this myth appear to be profit-driven (i.e., Corsi's book The Obama Nation and WND's "Where's the Birth Certificate" line of merchandise), they have nonetheless garnered a huge conservative following.

Now bear with me, because I'm not really clear how their argument works. It is so nonsensical and convoluted that it actually hurts the brain. Basically, it goes something like this: Barack Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen, therefore the junior Obama must not be. They also claim that the Obama administration has yet to produce a valid birth certificate. Both of these claims are hysterically false. The citizenship claim is fairly easily debunked by reading the U.S. Constitution. Article 2, Section 1 states that:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment states 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.

Assuming Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 - by that time a state - he meets all legal qualifications of both a U.S. citizen and a U.S. President. Evidently much of the confusion stems from the a misinterpretation of U.S. law. Snopes.com points out that the citizenship status of Barack Obama Sr. would only be relevant if Junior were born outside of the United States.

But what about that birth certificate? What if Obama wasn't really born in the United States?

Factcheck.org investigated this myth, obtaining the actual birth certificate and posting photos of it on their website. Birth announcements were also placed in two Honolulu newspapers at the time of Obama's birth in 1961. Factcheck.org offers this tongue-in-cheek explanation to further solidify the insanity of these beliefs:

Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday.

So it would appear that the slightest bit of research and a cursory perusal of the U.S. Constitution would have been sufficient to put this myth to rest long ago. To the contrary, the "Birther" movement, as it is called appears to be gaining momentum, or at the very least has warranted the attention of the mainstream press. The website Birthers.org claims that Obama's birth documents are forgeries and that Obama was likely born in Kenya or Indonesia. They even offer as evidence a prank-call style radio interview where a Kenyan official with limited English fluency is tricked into affirming that Obama's "birthplace" is in Kenya. (You really must hear this. It's the height of despicability).

Currently Reps. John Campbell (R-CA) and Bill Posey (R-FL) are sponsoring a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would require presidential candidates to present a birth certificate and other supporting documents to prove he or she meets the requirements for the office of President. Ordinarily, this type of bill might not seem so extreme. I mean, why not certify the eligibility of the presidential candidates? The problem is that the United States is in the midst of her 44th presidency, and never before has a bill like this been deemed necessary. Hmmmm....What is so different about this President? Oh, right, he's a black man with a foreign-sounding name and a father from Kenya. When looked at in these terms, the Birther movement can be seen clearly for what it really is: a disturbing blend of racism and sour grapes. I don't like this President and he's kinda foreign or something....I know! He's not a citizen! And so it begins.

And so there is really only one more thing to say about the "Birther" movement: If you believe that Barack Obama is legally unqualified to be President of the United States, in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary, then you are in fact an idiot. If you think the Democratic Party would squander the very favorable political environment of 2008 by running an ineligible candidate, you really don't understand presidential politics. Certainly the legitimacy of George W. Bush's wins in 2000 and 2004 is highly suspect among those on the left. The main difference between the two is that the left-wing protests are almost entirely based in FACT (mass disenfranchisement of minority voters in swing states, astronomical irregularities in exit polling vs. reported election results). The claim that President Obama lacks a birth certificate is not only not a fact, but it's not even an opinion. It's just wrong. It would be as if a group of people got organized around the idea that Cleveland is the capitol of Ohio (it's actually Columbus). Like the Obama birth certificate, Columbus being the capitol of Ohio is a FACT and a matter of public record. A "Cleveland Truth" movement would not be any more ridiculous than the Birther movement, yet somehow the Birthers endure. With the economy in the tank, jobs evaporating, a broken health care system and two less-than-successful wars going on, Americans don't have time for manufactured conspiracy.

For a timely metaphor, lets compare this fiasco to the current steroid controversy in Major League Baseball. Imagine that a highly successful player for the Boston Red Sox had passed drug test after drug test year after year beyond any doubt. What would you think of someone who still doubted the legitimacy of said player? Exactly.... Must be a Yankees fan.

Sorry Bin Laden. Cap-and-trade is the new public enemy #1.

I always kind of thought this was a bad thing

Okay, so what's with the five month layoff, you ask? It was a number of things, really. The post-election Obama euphoria probably dulled my otherwise keen sense for detecting right-wing nonsense. In addition, the very serious economic predicament in which this nation finds itself diminished, in my opinion, the importance of issues like gay marriage and intelligent design for the time being. You might say I'm waiting for the proverbial dust to settle following Obama's first round of economic stimulus, waiting to see if the Left has any clue how to fix this mess before slamming the Right for getting us into it in the first place.

But also, the Right itself became much less prominent after November, lacking any real leadership or focus of message. There was even some talk on the left of the eminent downfall of the Republican Party itself. I'm not so sure about that, but certainly the party of George W. Bush has been much less prominent since his departure from office in January. Sure an episode of lunacy from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck would pop up periodically, but not to the degree to stir this sleeping giant. Until Now.

Two stories emerged last week that told me conservatives were still up to their old tricks, thus giving me the green light I've been seeking to pick up the blog once again. Those stories (which conservatives insist are connected) were the highly publicized "Tea Parties," bizarre displays of tax-induced angst that lay surprisingly dormant during the entire Bush era of government waste. The second was last week's release of a Department of Homeland Security report on radical right-wing extremist groups and conservatives' collective huff of righteous indignation and hypocrisy that followed.

I started to blog about both events and about the Right's collective effort to claim that the two events are unequivocally linked. Somewhere between Fox News audaciously claiming that liberal groups are more violent than right-wing groups and idiot righties dubbing Barack Obama a fascist, I just lost it. I got so bogged down in right wing craziness that I just couldn't continue. As with any prolonged layoff, like from exercise or substance abuse, I think I needed to work myself back into form gradually. Hence the following piece, which I came across on Think Progress, and I felt was just too good to be ignored.

I would again like to thank Think Progress and also the Washington Independent for bringing another GOP nutjob to my attention.

John Shimkus is a U.S. House of Representatives member from Illinois. Shimkus has been a global warming skeptic and opponent of greenhouse emissions regulation for some time. Today during a debate on a proposed "cap-and-trade" legislation, Shimkus made the following appeal:

I think this is the largest assault on democracy and freedom in this country that I've ever experienced. I've lived through some tough times in Congress - impeachment, two wars, terrorist attacks. I fear this more than all of the above activities that have happened.

Really? Worse than 9/11?

"Cap-and-trade" is a pollution regulation policy that puts limits on the amount of pollutants that can be emitted. Companies or other groups who exceed their allowance may purchase (trade) with others to fulfill their needs, so as the total amount of emission allowed in the particular body (city, state, nation, etc.) remains fixed. If one believes the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the scientific consensus of every industrialized nation, global warming is a serious problem that is almost entirely caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions since the industrial revolution. Given that nearly the entire industrialized world is in agreement that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced, how then is an effort in the U.S. to achieve this a greater threat to democracy than 9/11?

To answer that question, one must get to know Mr. Shimkus a little better. This is a man who opposes global warming legislation because he just doesn't feel it would make any difference. Why? That's right. Because God is taking care of it. We've heard this one before, like when Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachmann said in August 2008 that we don't need global warming legislation because "we all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet." Not to be outdone, Shimkus read scripture and invoked the creator Himself in a March 2009 senate hearing on climate change:




Not only will the earth end "only when God declares it is time to be over," as Shimkus asserts, but God already flooded the Earth once and promised he wouldn't do it again. ARE YOU CALLING GOD A LIAR?!!!

This is the point where a very lengthy discussion might ensue regarding the separation of church and state and the appropriateness of invoking religion in matters of science. I'll just say this: What a person chooses to believe in is his or her own choice and nothing should come between a person and their faith. Likewise, one person's faith should not intrude on a society's ability to better itself. Employing an ancient book to legislate complex scientific and political issues is reckless at best and at worst a sign of utter madness. I fear Mr. Shimkus is exhibiting more of the latter, and with leaders like this at the helm, it's no wonder the United States is bringing up the rear when it comes to addressing global climate change.

Now that we understand the kind of person we are dealing with here, let's return to Mr. Shimkus' recent comments regarding cap-and-trade, "the largest assault on democracy and freedom in this country" ever experienced by the congressman. It's unclear to me whether this is an attempt at hyperbole by Shimkus or whether he really is this nutty. I'm inclined to believe he just really is this nutty. One would have to reside pretty far to the right of the political spectrum to believe that governments have no role in sponsoring the health and safety of their citizens. Also inhabiting the lunatic right are those who believe it is every American's God-given right to consume as much fossil fuel as possible, and that infringing on that right is more heinous than the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That said, I've never known a Republican to pass up an opportunity to call someone or something "anti-American," so there's likely some method in his madness.

Mr. Shimkus' antics aside, global climate change is a legitimate concern and America has dragged her feet for way too long on this issue. It has been made abundantly clear that the consumption of fossil fuels is not a viable energy model for the future. Fossil fuels are limited in quantity and they pollute the planet, speeding global warming and negatively impacting public health. Any model of the future that assumes population growth is fundamentally at odds with fossil fuel consumption. If Americans want a future consisting of one oil war after another, fossil fuel addiction would be the way to guarantee that outcome. Right wingers will say that cap-and-trade will cause the cost of oil, coal and natural gas to skyrocket, as companies pass on the costs of cap-and-trade to consumers. Fine by me. Let fuel prices go through the roof. Our society is clearly at a crossroads with regard to energy. Fossil fuels are on the way out, and a dramatic increase in the cost of such fuels may be just the catalyst needed to bring about a more speedy extinction.

Obama and His Big Blue Paintbrush

Last night, Barack Obama won an election of tremendous historical and political significance. As an Obama supporter, I'm certainly very pleased with the victory as well as the positive reception his election has received around the world.

But my celebratory exterior belies the nerd within. I must have spent 18 out of the last 24 hours staring at that electoral map, trying to uncover the secrets behind Obama's lopsided drubbing of John McCain. Certainly, if you are one to believe the pre-election polling, this kind of performance was expected of Obama. In spite of these polling data, McCain's claims of a comeback and the so-called "Bradley Effect" left many on both sides of the aisle uncertain about what would happen on November 4th. As it turns out, the election went almost exactly according to the pre-election polling. Obama even stands to add icing to the cake if he wins either of the two remaining undecided races in Missouri and North Carolina.

So how did he do it? I'll save the hard analysis for another day, but studying the electoral map and comparing it to the 2004 election geography, some very telling facts arise that help tell the story of Obama's victory:

• If you give North Carolina to Obama and Missouri to McCain (as it appears it will go), Obama will end up winning 364 electoral votes, 94 more than is needed to win and 78 more than Bush's 286 electoral votes won in 2004. It is also 26 more than Karl Rove predicted.



• In addition to holding every blue state from 2004, Obama won nine states in 2008 that John Kerry lost: Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.



• In addition to the newly acquired blue states, Obama pushed McCain in other traditionally red states. Obama got within ten percentage points of McCain in seven states carried by Bush in 2004: Missouri (-1 point), Montana (-3 points), Georgia (-5 points), North Dakota (-8 points), South Dakota (-8 points), Arizona (-9 points) and South Carolina (-9 points). Bush carried these states by an average of 16.3 points.



• In the 2004 "Bush States," Bush beat Kerry by an average margin of victory of 18.2 percent. In these same states in 2008, McCain beat Obama by an average of only 9.5 percent.



• Obama won his home state of Illinois by 25 points, while McCain won Arizona by only 9 points. (Obama also won his former home state of Hawaii by 45 points.)



• In 2004 Kerry won six states by 3 or fewer points: Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Obama won these same six states by an average of 12.3 points.



• Compared to Bush in 2004, McCain performed better in only two states, Louisiana and Arkansas. McCain did roughly the same in Alaska and Tennessee, and worse than Bush in the remaining 46 states.

Is there a landslide coming?

Tomorrow, in an event nearly two years in the making, Americans will finally elect their next President. The McCain campaign and the right wing media are attempting to interpret the most minute of polling fluctuations as McCain "closing the gap" on Barack Obama. The reality is that, while McCain is seeing a slight increase in support, so is Obama, a result of undecided voters solidifying their choice as November 4th approaches. The election analysis site fivethirtyeight.com currently gives Obama a 98.1% chance of winning. Pollster.com still has Obama leading comfortably in swing states of Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and leading slightly in Florida, Missouri, North Dakota and North Carolina. CNN's Poll of Polls shows very similar findings. Fivethirtyeight.com projects Obama to win 340 electoral votes to McCain's 198. By Pollster.com estimates, McCain would need to win every toss up state and every blue leaning state to get the minimum 270 electoral votes needed to win.

That said, many are predicting a very tight race much like we saw in 2000 and 2004. Why do people still think McCain can win? As far as I can tell, there are really only three reasons anyone can still hold out hope for McCain:

1. The "Bradley Effect"

The much-publicized phenomenon named for former Los Angeles mayor and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley has been used as evidence of a possible unreliability of pre-election polling. The idea is that a social desirability bias exists among polling respondents, causing them to tell pollsters they intend to vote for a minority candidate when in fact they do not. Some believe this effect can make as much as a 6 percentage point difference, which could swing some Obama-leaning states over to McCain.

2. Undecided voters will vote McCain

There is an idea floating around that undecided voters will opt for McCain because he is seen as more experienced and less risky. Also, some undecideds actually represent "Bradley Effect" McCain voters who claim to be undecided so as not to appear negative to the ethnic minority candidate. While there may be some merit to that idea, it is probably not that significant an edge for McCain, and the undecided voters currently only make up 3-4% of respondents polled. Even if the undecideds go for McCain 2 to 1, that only represents 2-3 percentage points, not enough to tip the balance in his favor in critical swing states.

3. GOP election-day shenanigans

Rolling Stone recently published an article detailing the GOP strategy to suppress to vote. Stricter voter registration laws will no doubt result in many eligible voters being turned away at the polls due to ID issues, typos and technicalities. The long lines that plagued many Democratic-leaning precincts in 2004 have already been an issue in early voting locations. Add to that Republican voter intimidation campaigns, phony claims of voter fraud, and voting machine "glitches," and it's easy to see why Republicans like McCain's chances despite polling data to the contrary.


Do I believe these things will have an effect on the election? Absolutely. Do I think they will tip the election in McCain's favor? Not by a long shot. In fact, I tend to believe Obama will win by pretty much the same margins the polls are predicting, if not more. For every election day unknown that benefits McCain, there is an equally compelling unknown working in Obama's favor:

A. Cellphone-only households.

Public opinion surveys, while often very reliable, do not take into account households (like mine) that have no land line telephone. Paul Maslin, Salon.com contributor and partner at the public opinion firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, noted that cellphone-only voters made up 7.1% of all voters in 2004. That number is likely to be much higher this year. So why does this help Obama? Because this demographic is more highly represented by young adults, minorities and the poor, all more likely to vote for Obama. Maslin suggests that the cellphone-only factor will likely give Obama an additional 2% to 4% boost nationwide. That is roughly equivalent to the percentage of undecideds McCain hopes will swing to his side.

B. The Enthuisiasm Gap

While survey firms usually only include data of "likely voters," not all likely voters are created equal. In a recent ABC News/Washington Post Poll, 63% of Obama supporters were "very enthusiastic" about their candidate. Only 29% of McCain supporters felt that way about the GOP candidate. One can fairly safely assume that the more enthusiastic a voter is for his/her candidate, the more like he/she is to actually vote for that candidate. Assuming the polling data are correct, Obama supporters are simply more likely to get to the polls than McCain supporters. Not only does enthusiasm increase voter turnout among the enthused, it also has the beneficial side effect of generating a massive volunteer staff, as the Obama campaign has done. Not only will Obama enthusiasts get to the polls, they will get others to the polls. Even with the addition of Sarah Palin to pander to the Evangelical Republican base, support for McCain-Palin remains tepid when compared to Obamamania.

Looking at the electoral map, McCain needs to win several states where Obama currently holds leads of 5 to 10 percentage points (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Virginia and Nevada). The Bradley Effect, undecided voters and GOP vote suppression will certainly have an impact. The problem for McCain is that that impact will likely be offset and then some by the turnout of cellphone-only voters and Obama enthusiasts. I believe factors A and B to be much more influential than factors 1, 2 and 3. So for McCain to win, he would essentially need ALL THREE factors to happen and for factors A and B not to happen. This scenario is highly unlikely. More likely, in my opinion, is that Obama will actually beat pre-election polling numbers. McCain's factors can only account for a few percentage points here and there. In other words, there is a limit to how much these factors can actually benefit McCain. For Obama, the enthusiasm behind his candidacy and the massive Get Out the Vote campaign have the ability to drastically impact voter turnout. With voter turnout typically around 50-60% for presidential elections, there is a large amount of room for this to swing the vote in Obama's favor.

So, given that pre-election polling is historically very accurate and whatever undetectable advantages McCain has will likely be cancelled out by Obama's own untapped voting blocs, I am predicting a rather easy victory for the Obama-Biden ticket tomorrow. I won't go as far as to predict a landslide, because A) I'm not sure how to appropriately define "landslide" and B) it's not a good idea for someone who favors an Obama presidency to get complacent a day before the election. This will, however, be a large victory - and an historic one - for Barack Obama. Today, Monday, November 3, 2008, a man of mixed race and a Muslim-sounding name is poised to defeat the deep-pocketed, corporately-driven Republican smear machine. He is in this position in spite of widespread lies and distortions spread about him by his opponent, and a general campaign of fear and appeals to racism coming from the right.

Certainly 2008 has been set up for awhile as a good year for Democrats, with the embarrassing Bush presidency, an unpopular war and a floundering economy. This is precisely why this election can't be close. This election needs to be seen as a referendum on the Republican Party, and quite frankly, anything less than a blowout doesn't send a strong enough message. If McCain only loses by a few percentage points or a couple of dozen electoral votes, it shows that the GOP still has clout. It would show that despite inflicting endless war and reckless economic policies on the American taxpayer, many people still feel this type of leadership is appropriate.

So it's no secret that I'm hoping for (and predicting) a huge victory for Barack Obama. On Wednesday, McCain can go back to the Senate, Palin can return her wardrobe and disappear into the Alaskan wilderness, never to be heard from again.

Oh, and if Obama does win by a landslide, I imagine he'll get Stevie Nicks' permission first so as not to repeat the mistakes of the McCain campaign.

UPDATE:

Karl Rove is even predicting a big victory for Obama, 338-200 in the electoral college.

Can we stop questioning this guy's patriotism already?

I just wanted to quickly comment on the following.

Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Republicans have repeatedly attacked Barack Obama for an alleged lack of patriotism. From his absent lapel pin to his wife's "proud of my country" comments, Righty has seized upon every opportunity to paint Obama as someone not all that psyched about the U.S.A. Some have even gone as far as to call Obama Anti-American and a "terrorist." He has even been attacked by his opponents for believing the country is not the "greatest source for good in this world" and is "imperfect." (Shit, at this point I would take imperfect, and maybe like, the 35th greatest source of good in the world.)

While the validity of such attacks can be easily disputed, I would simply like to respond by saying this: Barack Obama is running for President of the United States. As a brilliant, well-spoken and well-liked scholar, Obama could likely earn fame and/or fortune in any number of private sector capacities. He instead has spent much of his adult life as a community organizer, Illinois State Senator and U.S. Senator. Now he is seeking the highest office in the country and arguably the world. President of the United States is a tough job, a thankless job, and for Barack Obama, a very dangerous job.

Yesterday, federal authorities disrupted a neo-Nazi plot to assassinate Senator Obama. It is the second such plot uncovered, after authorities arrested three would-be Colorado assassins in August. The Tennessee-based neo-Nazis planned to kill Obama and go on a shooting spree at a "predominantly African-American school." Here's a photo of the nutjob, pulled from his MySpace page:

Whether or not these threats are legitimate remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that there is an element that exists in the United States that welcomes the assassination of this political figure. It's becoming clear that Obama is not so much "The One," but rather The One Right-Wing Radicals Have Been Waiting Their Whole Lives to Assassinate. After all, this is a nation with a history of offing its most charismatic, influential and forward-thinking leaders. Obama is a radical neo-Nazi's wet dream: a little Kennedy, a little MLK.

I am in no way suggesting that the views of these radical racist elements represent the right as a whole. Certainly they inhabit the right half of the political spectrum, but I'll spare right-wingers from any guilt-by-association smear. The point I'm trying to make is that by attempting to lead a violent, gun-toting nation with a history of racism and demonization of the left, Obama is taking a pretty big risk. He's doing so, in essence, to take on probably the most difficult and stressful public service job in the world. So stop claiming this guy is un-American, a Muslim or a terrorist. Stop harping on his lapel pins and his middle name. This is a guy who has the opportunity to bring the nation together and move it forward. To to so, he has chosen to campaign in the lion's den, speaking to large outdoor crowds in the South, Western Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, and so on. This likely caused him a few sleepless nights. And if elected, we will likely hear about similar assassination plots every few months or so.

So while Obama might not be a great war hero, but one could easily say he is putting his life on the line to serve his country. Regardless of how one feels about Obama's political views, it's time for the questions about his patriotism to end.

No, Inland Empire! That's a bad Inland Empire!

I just had to comment on this. Thanks to The Press-Enterprise and Thinkprogress for picking this one up.

For those of us in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire is sort of like our retarded cousin to the east. The IE (or the 909) is like having a little bit of Alabama right in your own backyard. Whenever COPS is not filmed in the South, it's in the IE. The 909 is to air quality what China is to civil liberties. You get the idea. Every so often they do a bad thing and have to be reprimanded. You can't really blame them for doing the bad thing. They are, after all, the IE. But they still need to be learn that what they did was wrong.

This week the Press-Enterprise reported on a disturbing newsletter circulated by a Rancho Cucamonga based Republican women's group. The newsletter contained what was meant as a critique of Barack Obama's claim that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Here's what they came up with:

Let me just say that I typically have a pretty high threshold for racism. There are many occasions when claims of racism are bandied about inappropriately. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE OCCASIONS. This is so racist that it just slaps you in the face. There's a great Dave Chappelle stand-up routine where he talks about this kind of racism:

Have you ever had something happen that was so racist that you didn't even get mad?...I mean it was so blatant you were just like "Wow." Almost like it didn't even happen to you, it was like a fucking movie.

Aside from the collard greens and pigs feet, the illustrator pretty much nailed all of the African American food stereotypes. Now I have to come clean for a minute. As a teenager, my friends and I once regrettably took part in a "traditional black picnic," for black history month, featuring pretty much the same fare depicted on the "Obama Bucks." I now realize that the picnic idea probably amounted to racism. Victimless racism, but racism nonetheless.

The problem with the above depiction of Obama is that is was circulated to members of the community, as supposedly representing the organization's members. Of course, this kind of thing shows up all the time in Republican-affiliated newsletters and websites (here, here, here, here, and here). Appeals to racism generally work to the GOP's advantage. What made this story unique in my opinion, was the utterly moronic claim of ignorance on the part of the person responsible for the newsletter's circulation. Diane Fedele, president of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, said this of the illustration:

I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected. It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else.

Yeah, no. Nobody is buying for a minute the idea that watermelon, fried chicken, ribs and Kool-Aid are "just food" whilst encircling a black man. There are times when I may be ignorant to racism. I'll hear someone cry racism and I say to myself, "Wow, really? That's racist? Good to know." Like apparently Jar Jar Binks was racist. Not a racist, mind you, but I guess the character invoked some unfortunate black stereotypes. I don't know. But this Obama Buck crap is different. I assure you if I were a contestant on the Pyramid, and my partner rattled off those four foods, I'd be like, "Dude, you had me at watermelon: Foods Black People Like to Eat!"

So don't sit there and try to tell people you didn't know it was a racial stereotype. Stop saying that you don't see the color of people's skin, only the character of their soul. Wait! Let me guess. You had a friend in college who was black, right? I knew it. Just stop it already. We get it. You're a racist. You thought it would be funny. You thought no one would say anything because they're all racists too. It's fine. Some people are just racists. Just stop telling people you didn't know any better, because fucking dogs knew that picture was racist.

Damn. Now I'm hungry.

UPDATE:

Tonight, Keith Olbermann named Diane Fedele his Worst Person in the World for her lame brained excuse given for circulating the racist newsletter.