Birther

• Media Matters calls for accountability following omissions during Fox News' ACORN reports.
• Salon: Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck's life.
• RH Reality Check: Egg-as-Person State Law Campaigns Attract New Faces, Old Radicals.
• David Weigel reports on the Federation for American Immigration Reform's "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" event.
• Good As You has the audio of Tony Perkins speaking at Bangor Baptist Church in Maine following the right wing anti-marriage rally in the state last weekend.
• Rep. Steve King is defending his colleague Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), by claiming that  "the President threw the first punch."
• Finally, Orly Taitz gets laughed out of court, which only proves, of course, that the judge is a tool of Obama. Also, someone even crazier than Taitz is accusing her of trying to get him to give false testimony for one of her Birther lawsuits.

The Los Angeles Times reports that organizers of next year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) have rejected a request by WorldNetDaily to host a panel on the Birther issue:

In one symbolic development, organizers of next year's Conservative Political Action Conference -- the country's biggest annual meeting of activists on the right -- said last week that they had rejected a request to schedule a panel on whether Obama was a native-born U.S. citizen.

"It would fill a room," said event director Lisa De Pasquale. "But so would a two-headed monkey. There really are so many more important issues, and it's only a three-day conference."

CPAC officials said WorldNetDaily's [Joseph] Farah asked the group to hold the panel.

Yeah, CPAC certainly wouldn't want to associate with the lunacy spouted by the likes of Farah or WND now would it?

Joseph Farah addressing CPAC in 2008.

Josh Gerstein reports on yesterday's federal court hearing on Orly Taitz's Birther lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama's eligibility to be president, noting that "the ball didn't move much."

But he does point to an interesting development between Taitz and two of the plaintiffs she was representing, Markham Robinson and Wiley Drake.

It seems that Robinson and Drake decided that they would rather be represented by Gary Kreep, of "Defend Glenn Beck" fame, and mailed documents to Tatiz informing her of their decision.  But Taitz refused to sign the documents and instead tried to get them dismissed from the case [PDF]:

In July 2009, Plaintiffs Robinson and Drake decided that they would prefer to be represented by Gary G. Kreep in this matter instead of their counsel at the time, Dr. Orly Taitz (“Taitz” or “Counsel”). Robinson and Drake had Kreep prepare a Request for Approval of Substitution of Attorney and an Order on Request for Approval of Substitution of Attorney. On July 24, 2009, these documents were mailed to Taitz for her signature. Upon receipt of these documents, on July 30, 2009, Taitz sent an email to Kreep, Robinson, and Drake indicating that she had learned from prior experience that she did not work well with Kreep and suggesting that, instead of Plaintiffs remaining in the case with Kreep as their new counsel, Plaintiffs should voluntarily dismiss themselves from the case and refile separately should they so wish. Taitz refused to sign the Substitution of Attorney documents.

On August 1, 2009, Taitz filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal of Plaintiffs Robinson and Drake pursuant to FED. R. CIV. P. 41(a). The Notice stated that Plaintiffs Robinson and Drake “ask this Court to take Notice of and Approve their withdrawal from this action and voluntary dismissal of their names from the list of Plaintiffs, without prejudice to their refiling their claims at some future date in any court of competent jurisdiction, state or federal.” Notice at 3.

Plaintiffs Robinson and Drake have both submitted declarations that they did not consent to being voluntarily dismissed from the case and that Taitz filed the Notice of Voluntary Dismissal against their wishes.

Judge David Carter vacated Taitz's attempt to toss Robinson and Drake from the case and allowed them to switch their representation over to Kreep.

WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah continues to fight back against Jon Henke's efforts to get conservatives to boycott his right-wing rag and takes the battle to the pages of the Washington Times:

Joseph Farah, editor of World Net Daily, questioned Mr. Henke's motives and standing in an interview with The Washington Times.

"In the little bit of time I've had to figure out who Jon Henke is and what the Next Right is, I see it's pretty much a Republican establishment group who has worked for the RNC and the Republican Party and I can certainly understand why a group like that would have problems with World Net Daily," he said. "We are not in anybody's pocket and we don't have to take our cues from them. We never have and never will and that will probably bother some people."

He added about the Next Right: "Just looking at their biographies I see these are not journalists, they are political activists who have their own agendas."

So Henke is a Republican lapdog just doing the bidding of the RNC? That is interesting seeing that Henke is currently targeting the RNC for its dealings with WND and trying, unsuccessfully, to get them to explain:

After I argued that credible organizations on the Right should not support the conspiracy peddling of WorldNetDaily, it was pointed out that the RNC appears to have rented access to the WND email list. So I emailed the RNC to inquire about it and encourage them to stop.

My question was: "Is the RNC really renting the World Net Daily email list?" This was the response from the RNC Press Secretary:

Nice to meet you. Pls note that we have already weighed in on the birther issue -- weeks ago. Thanks.

The Press Secretary then appended a NYT story in which this was their response:

“Chairman Steele believes this is an unnecessary distraction and that the president is a U.S. citizen,” said Gail Gitcho, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. “He wants to move on and continue talking about real and immediate issues that are facing our nation, like health care and the economy. Chairman Steele has other issues to take up with the president having to do with policy, not a birth certificate.”

So, the sum total of the RNC's response was (a) Obama is "a U.S. citizen", but (b) we want to ignore this Birther story, (c) we're not saying whether or not we're working with the Birthers, and (d) we're just going to completely ignore the actual question you asked.

Also, it takes an amazing amount of gall, or a complete lack of self-awareness, for someone like Farah to claim that his critics are "not journalists [but just] political activists who have their own agendas."

Is Rep. Trent Franks really considering filing a lawsuit to demand that President Obama release his birth certificate?  According to the Mohave Daily News, the answer is yes:

The other main issue dealt with numerous speakers questioning Obama's birth certificate and why there wasn't an investigation into whether he is a naturalized citizen. One woman said a newspaper announcement of his birth in Hawaii was not sufficient. Another asked how he could have a passport without a birth certificate.

Franks said there was not enough evidence that Obama is not an American citizen. He did say there was a lot of conflicting evidence of Obama's citizenship and that he was considering filing a lawsuit, the only congressman to do so. Franks asked why the president did not simply produce a birth certificate.

David Weigel has more.

And on a related note, there is just something hilarious about Joseph Farah complaining that Ann Coulter's attack on the Birthers is "much less informed than is her usual standard": 

Coulter committed what many see as the unpardonable sin of attacking "birthers" – those "nuts" and "fruitloops" like me who actually want to see Barack Obama release his birth certificate and other documents he is so clearly hiding from the American public – documents crucial to knowing who our president really is and whether he is constitutionally eligible to hold office.

The attacks from friends, which I consider Ann to be, always hurt much more than attacks from adversaries. My skin is thick. It has to be in this business. Coulter's comments were scathing, and she painted with a broad brush. I was grateful she didn't make it personal in her comments on TV and in her WND column – the place where more people read Coulter than anywhere else. Nevertheless, I noted that her statements on this subject were much less informed than is her usual standard.

But the real hurt came when some WND readers began forwarding me Coulter's personal responses to their questions. They included what I consider to be scathing personal indictments of me and the company I direct ... Then came the vicious personal attack: "not one known conservative public figure or publication believes this – except WND, which I believe is pushing it to get website hits, bc no sane person could believe it – but the MSM keeps interviewing the nuts to make all conservatives look crazy and to distract from the serious problems with obama."

It really grieves me that Ann Coulter dismisses the one real investigative news agency's work and relies on warmed-over pabulum from the American Spectator and an unknown blog. There's a reason the American Spectator is named as such. It is a spectator when it comes to news. It is simply untrue that the Spectator found the birth announcements during the campaign. The first known source of the newspaper birth announcements was a pro-Hillary Clinton blogger in the summer of 2008.

Coulter's problem seems to be her contempt for real reporting – unless it is conducted by a pedigreed "conservative" source. Unfortunately for Coulter, as a lifelong journalist involved in investigative reporting for 30 years, I can tell you there is no such animal as a pedigreed "conservative" news outlet that does real investigative reporting. Apparently WND is just too "independent" for Coulter's trust.

I've already written several posts about the right-wing How To Take Back America Conference scheduled for next month, hosted by various Religious Right leaders including Phyllis Schlafly, Janet Porter, Rick Scarborough, Mat Staver, Joesph Farah, Don Wildmon, and others.  But the effectiveness of my efforts to describe it pale in comparison to hearing it directly from the participants themselves. 

Fortunately, earlier this week several of the hosts gathered for a pre-conference webcast and Porter has now posted several videos from the webconference, starting with a segment featuring Schlafly urging people to attend the event and another featuring General Jerry Boykin previewing his presentation on "the threat of Islamic extremism."

But I'm not posting them because, frankly, they are not that interesting ... at least not in comparison to this segment featuring Scarborough declaring that this conference is the first step to bringing together the Right in order to "turn out the infidels" and fill Congress with true leaders like Rep. Michele Bachmann.  Declaring that the 2008 election felt like a crucifixion, Scarborough took solace in the fact that "God always does his best work right after a crucifixion" and said that now was the time for Christians to rise up, stop Obama from "stealing from the American people" and save this nation (skip ahead to the section between the 6:00 to 8:00 minute mark):

That was followed by a rambling ten-minute presentation by Porter who wallowed in the various conspiracy theories that she's been fixated on recently about government internment camps and mass evacuation buses and a nefarious plot by the government to kill millions of Americans under the guise of providing flu vaccines.  Behold:

Have I mentioned that Mike Huckabee and Michele Bachmann are both going to be speaking at this event?

• More trouble for Gov. Mark Sanford.
• Dr. George Tiller's alleged murderer sure is getting some interesting visitors in jail.
• The Orlando Sentinel: Kissimmee commissioner Art Otero is not letting go of his effort to add the words "In God We Trust" to the city logo and says he will take the initiative to a referendum if needed ... Otero had told the Orlando Sentinel he started the logo effort because he feared the country was moving toward "liberal postures such as homosexuality, gay marriage, abortion and the legalization of marijuana." He also referred to the Obama administration as "socialist."
• The Christian Coalition calls Sonia Sotomayor the "most unpopular Supreme Court justice in history."
• Roy Moore: “Our morality is declining because we don’t recognize a moral absolute anymore. There’s no truth. We need the recognition of God. We ought to recognize God is the sovereign source of law and liberty in government.”
• Richard Land: "I don't want to seem overly dramatic here, but I'm telling you, based on everything I know, if we get Obama-care ... it will significantly lower the quality of life and length of life of your children and grandchildren."
• Finally, have you ever wished that someone would finally put the Birther conspiracy to music?  Well, you are in luck:

I suppose I am obligated to post the video of Orly Taitz's appearance on MSNBC yesterday, so here it is:

I don't feel this clip provided any new information to the issue - other than providing further evidence that Taitz is insane despite her insistence that she is not, in fact, crazy. 

In fact, the insistence by the Birthers that they are not crazy seems to be a their new defense, as that was exactly the point that Wiley Drake made last week:

Obama's supporters "want to brand anyone who questions him as a nut, and they're not. Alan Keyes is not a nut. I'm not," Drake said.

Which brings me to this good piece by David Weigel reporting that Taitz's antics and recklessness is causing a rift in the Birther movement among those who see her as undermining their efforts and which contains this interesting nugget: 

The “Kenyan birth certificate” has made skeptics out of people like Leahy and Kreep. Two of Taitz’s original plaintiffs, Wiley Drake and Markham Robinson, both associates of Alan Keyes during his presidential campaign, were removed from her latest filing after seeking new representation.

Has Taitz really become too crazy for the likes of Wiley Drake, a man who admits to praying to God to kill President Obama? That is quite an accomplishment.

On a semi-related note, I think it is also worth pointing out that Chuck Norris now seems to be throwing in with the Birthers as well, doing so by claiming that while he doesn't have any reason to doubt Obama's claims to citizenship, his refusal to release the document the Birthers are demanding is raising questions:

Isn't categorically satisfying constitutional requirements for a president, or answering the First Amendment grievances of hundreds of thousands of Americans, or ending a national debate or healing a country's divisions enough "direct and tangible interest"?

Mr. President, as more and more people realize that you are refusing to release your original birth certificate, further questions will fuel the fires of debate or at least hinder the embers from ever being snuffed out. Questions like, "Does it really contain the Hawaiian physician's name?" Or "Does it disclose something other than his birth place that he wishes others not to see?"

...

So again I ask, why don't you simply request, release and give permission to make public your original birth certificate?

Let's not forget that Norris was among Mike Huckabee's biggest and most visible supporters. That, coupled with the fact that Huckabee is scheduled to headline a right-wing conference next month being hosted by three bona fide Birthers leads me to wonder just what Huckabee's views are on this issue, considering that several of the people he has chosen to associate and surround himself with are deeply enmeshed in the Birther conspiracy movement.

Mike Huckabee might currently be sitting atop the polls of potential 2012 GOP presidential candidates but, just as happened during his 2008 run, his support among grassroots activists is not translating into fund-raising:

Recent polls show he is among the early frontrunners for the 2012 GOP presidential bid, but when it comes to fundraising this year, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee trails well behind his chief rivals.

The former Republican presidential candidate e-mailed supporters Thursday night announcing he has raised a little over $300,000 in the first six months of the year, a cash haul that is only about 20 percent of the $1.6 million former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took in the same period.

It's also about a third of what former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has raised since January. Her political action committee, SarahPAC, reported raising $730,000 through July 1, but a spokeswoman for Palin said the Alaska Republican took in an additional $200,000 in the early days of July after announcing she was stepping down as governor.

In addition, Newt Gingrich’s PAC, American Solutions for Winning the Future, took in more than $8 million in the first half of the year.

Perhaps these low fund-raising numbers for Huckabee explain why the PAC recently had to undergo a "restructuring" and why Huckabee is charging candidates his PAC has endorsed more than $30,000 to speak at their fund-raisers.