Saturday, July 25, 2009

What planet are the "Birthers" and Lou Dobbs from?

The national Republicans are demonstrating their insanity, power-hungry natures and political desperation by embracing the "Birther" movement. But it's clear why they are doing that. They have been removed from power in the federal government for incompetence in governing together with widespread corruption. Not only have the despised Democrats taken over both Houses of Congress, to add insult to injury Bush was replaced by of all people a man whose father was an African. A man the conservatives call "Black" has become President of the United States. Such events are so unbelievable to the conservative Republicans that the conservatives are in shock and acting like their entire world has turned upside down. When a few crazies started publicizing the idea that Obama is not a native-born American citizen and thus not eligible to become President, many have grabbed onto the idea in desperation. But it is desperation, as Jon Stewart demonstrates.

Jon Stewart accurately and with his usual humor presents the case that the "Birthers" are attempting to make that Barack Obama is not a native born American citizen eligible to be elected President. Stewart's case is as even handed a description as any reasonable person could present, since the "case" is itself insane and irrational and it is being offered by self-centered crooks and whacked-out crazies.

So who are the crazies and crooks? The crazies consist largely of the shocked and frightened conservative voters who simply can't believe that the conservative world they thought they were creating here in America has collapsed. The crooks are the more sane among the career conservative politicians who have built political careers out of the conservative movement since Reagan was elected.If the conservative movement has collapsed, then their careers are in real jeopardy.

The conservative crazies include a large number of angry right-wingers who will vote for anyone who promises anything that might possibly be used to replace Barack Obama as President and to replace the Democratic leadership of the House and Senate with people more to their liking. Those politicians who would be more to their liking are racist right-wing fundamentalist evangelists like ex-Representative Tom Tancredo, as well as Sen. Sessions, Sen. Coburn, Sen. Ensign or Sen. Vitter. Individually the conservatives may not appear crazy, but they all belong to a culture that is irrational in nature. They all know what they hate about the current more liberal culture, and they simply want it changed. They are disinterested in the process necessary to bring about that change. Since they are interested in getting the results they want and find that no rational process gets there, they reject rationality and in many cases, even science. The result is that the conservative culture is tends to be anti-rational. Those politicians who are riding this electorate for personal advantage and are not themselves crazies are the conservative Crooks. Those are the crooks, a groups strongly represented among the elected politicians.

In the House the crazies include Minnesota's Michele Bachmann who is famous recently for trying to get people to illegally refuse to fill out the 2010 census among other insanities. Similarly, there is Katherine Harris who famously ramrodded the theft of the Florida election for George Bush in 2000 when she was Florida Secretary of State. She later represented the Florida 13th Congressional District from January 3, 2003 – January 3, 2007, displaying all the sanity that we currently see from Michelle Bachman. Most of her problems became public when she ran for Senate in 2006. These are just samples of the Republican conservative caucus which is clearly filled with such kooks.

Many of the conservative politicians themselves are often not crazy like the voters who elect them are, but they cater to those voters so they can be elected to office. They have embedded themselves in that anti-rational conservative culture, generally because their family and/or friends belong to it. Then they have created political careers within that culture. Texas Senator Cornyn may be one of the more sane group who is capable of moving whatever direction the wind blows in order to protect his career and current seat in the Senate.

Generally, however, as the national Republicans have gained their reputation for being unable to government effectively - largely because of their demand that government not operate on rational scientific processes - the conservative politicians have found it harder to attract Independent voters. This has become true even as the voters identifying as Democrats have grown in numbers. Those identifying as Democrats have clearly rejected what the conservatives claim to offer, so they are not open to conservative arguments. So the only thing the Republican office holders can do to remain in office is to appeal to the more extreme crazies among the voters. The "Tea Parties are one example of this, as is the "Birther" movement. So is the greater use of right-wing extremism issues by leading Republican politicians as they are led by Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and the gaggle of right-wing shock-jocks on radio.

The "Birther" movement itself is run by a gaggle of incompetent "lawyers." Here are descriptions of those lawyers reported by The Washington Independent.
  • "Phil Berg, the original “birther” lawyer, has been forced to pay out sanctions for legal malpractice." His arc of career failure continues as he pushes this idiotic "birther" case.

  • Orly Taitz, a California lawyer featured in the Jon Stewart routine above,"...got her law degree from an online correspondence school." Jon Stewart provided additional information on her career. She has also claimed to be a Dentist and a real estate agent. One has to wonder how many careers she can fail in.

  • "Charles Lincoln, who has been assisting Taitz — [he] provided judges with amended complaints in Keyes et al v. Obama et al last week and he showed up at the last hearing on the case— has been disbarred in California, as well as Florida and Texas." Since he has been disbarred in so many states, it would appear that he is practicing as a law clerk supervised by Orly Taitz who apparently still maintains a law license in California.
Apparently Lou Dobbs has bought the arguments made by Orly Taitz. Why he sticks with the story is unknown. He frames his "reporting" as presenting the conflict, but no one else with any sanity recognizes any valid conflict now, including the President of the CNN Network, Jon Klein. Is Dobbs so hard up for ratings that, like the conservative Republican incumbent politicians, he has to troll for viewers among the crazy right-wing extremists? Or perhaps he got suckered by Taitz and can't find a reasonable way to drop the subject. It is an unanswered puzzle why he is now trashing his own reputation as an on-air pundit to keep bringing the so-called story back up time and again.

In any case, that appears to be the current status of the major elements surrounding the "Birther" movement. That strange movement looks like a clear symptom of the total collapse of the conservative movement and the self-destruction of the national Republican Party. That the "Birther" issue is still making news as all demonstrates the collapse of the news industry and it's wide spread replacement by political advocacy media organs. But that's another story in itself.

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