Daily Archives: May 22, 2012

May 22, 2012 · 3:01 PM

Hawaii turns tables on Arizona Secretary of State’s birther requests

AZ Sec of State Ken Bennett via screen grab

The Raw Story

Hawaiian officials have apparently had enough of your requests for President Barack Obama’s birth certificate and they’re not afraid to tell you where to get off, even if you are Arizona’s Secretary of State Ken Bennett or a special delegation sent by Maricopa County’s controversial “Sheriff Joe.”

Talking Points Memo obtained emails yesterday detailing the occasionally testy exchanges between Bennett and Jill T. Nagamine, Hawaii’s Deputy Secretary of State.  Bennett, who is a co-chair of former Massachusetts governor and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s Arizona campaign, announced last Thursday that “it’s possible” President Obamamay not appear on the Arizona ballot in November. TPM filed a public records request on Monday to obtain the correspondence between Bennett’s office and Hawaiian officials, and the results are hugely entertaining.

It appears that the State of Hawaii’s first response to Bennett’s request of President Obama’s birth certificate was to quickly dash out a letter on March 17 with a series of hyperlinks, including one to the Hawaii Department of Health’s website and three links to Hawaii’s Revised Statutes concerning the confidentiality of vital records.

The state of Hawaii has gone to great lengths to handle the years of backlogged requests by so-called “birthers” looking for the president’s birth certificate. In spite of the White House’s decision last year to release the president’s long-form birth certificate, the Hawaii Department of Health is still receiving an average of 50 new requests each month.

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· 12:46 PM

Sherrif Joe Sends Birther ‘Investigators’ To Hawaii On Taxpayer Dime, Including Sheriff’s Deputy

I’m  amused by groups in the Tea Party or GOP who have looked for almost six years to find some dirt on Barack Obama.  It appears that the POTUS is just a normal, everyday American.

At what point do these Obama Derangement Syndrome characters realize that there’s no smoking gun out there?

Addicting Info

Joe Arpaio,Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, and one of the leading lights of the tragically dim ‘birther movement,’ has enlisted a sworn deputy to act as “security” in Hawaii for his ‘investigation.’ Arpaio has made a lot of noise in the past about his ‘Cold-Case Posse,’ and it’s supposed reliance on volunteers and donated funds, but now his investigation appears to need the use of a taxpayer-funded deputy.

What’s more, the Maricopa Sheriff’s Office has also provided the cost of airfare and hotel rooms for the deputy, as well as ‘volunteer posse member’ Mike Zullo. Arpaio says he expects to reimburse those costs, but why should Arizona taxpayers be expected to fund any part of this ridiculous vendetta?

Aside from all the usual motivations that most ‘birthers’ bring to the table, Sheriff Joe has an extra incentive in trying to displace President Obama; Arpaio’s administration is under investigation by the Justice Department for a variety of offenses that, of course, include racial discrimination.

And while it’s not unusual to find strains of racism at the heart of the movement, it’s not every birther that the Justice Department investigates.

It seems as though Arpaio is throwing all his (and now, Arizona’s) resources into some kind of 11th-hour, last-ditch B-movie quality conspiracy investigation that will show the president to be a foreign pretender. And cast himself as humble Sheriff Joe, the hero that saved the day. And while he contends that his investigations aren’t politically motivated, he has also claimed that they were all privately funded.

Arpaio contends that the deputy is a legitimate expenditure, “It’s one deputy, so what? We have security issues, too, that I can’t got into. For six months we were not spending any money. When you’re doing investigations sometimes things change, you put more resources into it.”

He also insists that the deputy is not expected to make any arrests saying, “He’s just a liaison to give advice if needed. He’s not doing anything. The posse’s been doing the research.”

So, now that law enforcement resources have been brought in, can we assume that Joe is that much closer to arresting Obama?

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· 10:42 AM

Palin advises Romney: ‘Go rogue’ and use Rev. Wright to attack Obama

Sarah Palin speaks to Fox News

She’s baaack and as clueless as ever!

The Raw Story

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney should “go rogue” and attack President Barack Obama for his former associations with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Marxists and radicals.

During an interview on Fox News on Monday, host Sean Hannity told Palin that he thought the president’s former pastor was “relevant” even though Romney had repudiated a proposal to use Wright in attack ads.

The half-term Alaska governor replied: “I thought so in 2008 and that’s why I went rogue, if you will, and disagreed with some of John McCain’s advisers when they said, no, a lot of these issues like past associations and Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers and those that helped shape Obama’s world view needed to be off the table and not discussed. I disagreed then, I disagree now.”

“Barack Obama in 2008 was an empty vessel,” she continued. “The public did not know who or what filled this vessel in order to create what has become a very confused and mission and visionless leader for our country. Well, now it’s not too late to change course and this next go around understand what has filled up that vessel. Who are these people? Who are the radicals, the Marxist professors that he said he would hang out with, some of his friends and associations.”

Hannity noted that Democrats and the media were willing to bring up Romney’s alleged 1965 gay bullying incident, putting a dog on his car roof, the so-called war on women and “throwing granny over the cliff” by privatizing Medicare — but Republicans were refusing employ the same type of tactics.

“Amen, brother,” Palin agreed. “A one-sided, cease-fire call is not something to agree to. Some of these GOP operatives, Sean, they seem to have the fighting instinct of [Sesame Street character] Mr. Snuffleupagus. And if you remember him, he would hide, he would back down, he would run the other direction.”

“It’s disgusting, the double standard,” she added. “And I’m really tired of, again, too many in the GOP establishment just kind of kowtowing to what the left will dictate in terms of how this election is going to go.”

Palin also reiterated her advice that Romney pick tea party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL) as his vice presidential running mate.

“I love people who understand the Constitution and will fight tooth and nail and are willing to put their lives and their families lives on the line to defend our republic. That is who I want to see as that teammate for the GOP nominee.”

Video…

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