Rick Perry, racist

TPM is reporting today that Rick Perry has added a birther theme to his campaign.

In an interview in Parade magazine, here's what he said:

Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?
I have no reason to think otherwise.

That’s not a definitive, “Yes, I believe he”—
Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.

But you’ve seen his.
I don’t know. Have I?

You don’t believe what’s been released?
I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night.

And?
That came up.

And he said?
He doesn’t think it’s real.

And you said?
I don’t have any idea. It doesn’t matter. He’s the President of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue.

Now it's very tempting to look at this interview and have it confirm your underlying opinion that Rick Perry is just a stupid guy, and this is another illustration of that opinion, but it goes way beyond that.

What we need to keep in mind is that the birthers are racists. Every single one of them.

So when Rick Perry joins up with the birthers, and garners the endorsement of Orly Taitz, he is joining up with the racists.

Do we know if he really believes anything he's saying here, or if he really has the racist position against President Obama that he is expressing?

No, but it doesn't really matter.

Tonight's quiz

Now that Obama has released his so-called "long form" birth certificate, one thing is certain: the racists who have been pushing the birther lie for more than two years now are not going to stop.

There's only one question: now that he's done exactly what they wanted him to do, what will they rely on to continue their campaign of lies?

Here are a couple of possibilities:

1. "It's still not a birth certificate, it's a certificate of live birth."

2. "It doesn't disprove the Kenyan birth certificate or his grandmother's story about seeing him born in Kenya."

3. This one's probably a forgery too.

4. Even if he's a citizen, he's not a natural born citizen because his father was not a citizen. (Note: the fact that no court has ever interpreted the "natural born citizen" clause the way they want it to be interpreted apparently doesn't bother them.

5. Hawaii? You really expect us to believe that's part of the United States?

6. Maybe he was born here, but he's still a Muslim.

7. And the ultimate birther argument: niggerniggernigger.

Thanks, Orly!

The latest from mail-order lawyer and birther queen Orly Taitz:

Orly Taitz, Birther Queen, seeks UN protection. Orly Taitz, California lawyer, dentist, and real estate agent, has made an appeal to the United Nations for “urgent action under the mandate for human rights defenders.” Taitz is is claiming she is under “increasing legal attack in the United States from groups and individuals opposed to her legal actions challenging the Constitutional qualifications of Barrack Hussein Obama to hold the office of President of the United States.”

According to a letter sent by her attorney, Jonathan Levy, Taitz has "been the victim of death threats, vandalism, false complaints, and a suspected assassination attempt" in the course of her efforts to expose Obama as a fraud, adding that "her reports to law enforcement and the judiciary have been ignored." There has not yet been any official response from the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Get this:

As always main stream media misrepresents the truth. I wonder: are they so thick or so corrupt that they cannot comprehend one sentence, that I have been saying for a year and a half: Obama is not eligible because of his dual allegiance to 3 other countries and no valid documents proving US birth and he needs to be prosecuted for SS security fraud and common law fraud, using multiple ss numbers of the deceased and numbers that were never assigned.

Yes, you read that right--dual allegiance to three countries. Maybe "dual" means something different at the correspondence law school she got her degree from.

The Best and the Brightest

Of the birthers, that is.


She keeps trying, and she keeps getting shot down again and again. This week she got hit twice.

First was the substantive decision on one of her bogus cases challenging Obama's qualifications to be president. She had filed a complaint in federal court and a request for a preliminary injunction to protect a military doctor from going to Iraq, and the court not only denied the injunction, the court dismissed the case. In a fourteen page decision the judge eviscerates her and her client:

First, Plaintiff’s challenge to her deployment order is frivolous. She has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as President of the United States. Instead, she uses her Complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the President is “an illegal usurper, an
unlawful pretender, [and] an unqualified imposter.” (Compl. ¶ 21.) She continues with bare, conclusory allegations that the President is “an alien, possibly even an unnaturalized or even an unadmitted illegal alien . . . without so much as lawful residency in the United States.” (Id. ¶ 26.)

He goes further, and this is very unusual, ordering that

Furthermore, Plaintiff’s counsel is hereby notified that the filing of any future actions in this Court, which are similarly frivolous, shall subject counsel to sanctions. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c).

I was first admitted to practice in federal court almost thirty years ago, and I know that I would take it seriously if I got an order like this. What does Orly do?

First, she goes out and attacks the judge, his judicial integrity, and his independence. "Somebody should consider trying [the judge] for treason and aiding and abetting this massive fraud known as Barack Hussein Obama."

"This is so outrageous what this judge did -- it goes in the face of law and order," said Taitz, reached at her office in Mission Viego, CA. "Not every judge is as corrupt as Judge Land. Some judges believe in the Constitution. And some judges believe in the rule of law."

"Listen, Nelson Mandela stayed in prison for years in order to get to the truth and justice."

And Taitz brushed off the possibility of sanctions. "I'm not afraid of sanctions. Because I know this is not frivolous. I know this is extremely important -- the most important issue in this country today."

"Judge Land is a typical puppet of the regime -- just like in the Soviet Union," she said.

Then, she goes back to the same judge and asks him, pretty please, to change his mind:

Plaintiff avers that there is increasing evidence that the United States District Courts in the 11th Circuit are subject to political pressure, external control, and, mostly likely, subservience to the same illegitimate chain of command which Plaintiff has previously protested in this case, except that the de facto President is not even nominally the Commander-in-Chief of the Article III Judiciary.

Smart litigation tactic? Maybe not.

“It was deja vu all over again.”

Simply, put the motion is frivolous. Moreover, the Court further finds that Plaintiff’s motion is being presented for the improper purpose of using the federal judiciary as a platform to espouse controversial political beliefs rather than as
a legitimate forum for hearing legal claims. Counsel’s conduct violates Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and sanctions are warranted. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration (Doc. 15) is denied, and counsel for Plaintiff is ordered to show cause why the Court should not impose a monetary
penalty of $10,000.00 upon Plaintiff’s counsel for her misconduct.

So what's the point here? Well, I guess there are a couple.

First is the utter pointlessness of this argument. Nobody with a brain takes this argument seriously. Every judge the claim has been presented to has rejected it in one way or another.

The second may be even more important. Orly Taitz really is the best and the brightest. She is absolutely the smartest thing they've got going over in Birther-Land.

I know, reading the Taitz dispatches is like susbsisting on a diet of M&M's. Not nutritious, they won't sustain you over the long haul, but it's hard to not grab that one next M, isn't it?