Is the Secret Service Targeting the Birthers?

mother jones ^ | Thu Jan. 7, 2010 3:05 AM PST | By Stephanie Mencimer

[Sophia777]

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/secret-service-targeting-birthers

Over the past year, Secret Service agents charged with protecting President Obama seem to have taken a keen interest in the Birther movement, the committed group of anti-Obama activists around the country who claim the president was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and is thus ineligible to serve. The idea has been widely and repeatedly debunked (see FactCheck.org's thorough takedown here), but that hasn't stopped Birthers from doggedly making their case in American courtrooms, to US attorneys, and even to a rural county grand jury, in the hopes that a judge will rule in their favor and Obama might eventually be removed from office. Those efforts have failed spectacularly, but they seem to have succeeded in placing the Birthers on the radar of the Secret Service.

[snowsislander]

So, the Kenyan Clown is using the Secret Service to intimidate people who dare ask "Where's your paperwork showing that you are a natural born citizen eligible to serve in the Oval Office?"

I hope that we can vote a better Congress in, because this misuse of the Secret Service is a rank abuse of power.

[mad_as_he$$]

“It's settled science.”

[Joe 6-pack]

"The thing that amazes me is the millions of dollars he has spent trying not to produce that $10 document."

In all fairness to Obama, I seem to recall that the cost of the certified document is actually $12. ;-)

[spintreebob]

You have it right. Factcheck and others coverup groups put up a strawman. Then they knock down the strawman.

The real fact is that most of us don’t know where Obama was born. The few who do know are either not talking ... or talking and we don’t know whether to believe them or not.

Obama’s birthplace is just one example of how little we really do know. Our culture is filled with assumed facts that are not facts at all. They are just assumptions.

[wintertime]

( ping for later)

I think I hear a knock at the door.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I thought the Secret Service was charged only with handling physical threats to the President. Unless a “birther” made such a threat it seems the SS has no grounds for jurisdiction.

[junkman_106]

Funny, I’ve been getting “can’t locate the server” pop-ups as well. Especially when I’m on FR. Wonder what’s up?

[GBA]

I don't know where obama was born. There are only a few people who actually know and the rest of us are merely speculating. But, I can't help noticing the effort made to create "Barak Obama", fast track him, someone with little life success or experience, through the system and now to protect what is truly known about that fictional character.

Why would anyone go to such lengths to hide their birth certificate or their school records, especially a narcissist like obama? In the olden days, way back when Nixon was President, investigative reporters would have been curious. Today they go after people asking questions and speculating about possible answers.

[Common Sense 101]

Other than the fact that Zero has spent over a million on legal fees rather than just producing this birth certificate and shutting everyone down, a couple of things have always bothered me about this issue:

1. If it is a constitution REQUIREMENT for a President to be born in the U.S., then how exactly does Zero get by without demonstrating his fulfills it. Holy crap, I have to take a copy of my son's birth certificate to prove his age for each football season, so I don't see why this should be any more unreasonable.

2. I'm no constitutional lawyer, but if this is a government “by the people”, then why don't the people have standing in a case asking that its President demonstrate that he has met the requirement to hold that position?

[philman_36]

...activists around the country who claim the president was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and is thus ineligible to serve...
The "born in Kenya" line is a ruse. Nobody knows, except through his own admissions, where the man was born. That's the whole problem and why a full certificate is being sought!

[ZULU]

The job of the Secret Service is to protect the President from real threats, not to serve as a political police force for any existing administration.

It would seem that this agency merits a total re-organization, but not under the aegis of this FRAUDULENT President, who VERY WELL MAY HAVE BEEN BORN IN ANOTHER COUNTRY.

The Secret Service should report directly to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, not any sitting President.

[DJ MacWoW]

So what are you doing to get their attention? No other poster has been flagged in such a manner. And they’d say so if they had. They’d be yelling.

[bjorn14]

We should file lawsuits against the 365 electors who put Obama in office for “conspiracy to commit election fraud” One of them is bound to crack.

[ClearCase_guy]

Unless a “birther” made such a threat it seems the SS has no grounds for jurisdiction.

The government does whatever the heck it wants. Where have you been??

;)

[Eagle Eye]

Noob alert.

[DJ MacWoW]

You bet.

[kristinn]

This is what the Democrats did under Bill Clinton.

[DJ MacWoW]

Democrats always abuse power.

[ml/nj]

In all fairness to Obama, I seem to recall that the cost of the certified document is actually $12. ;-)

The actual cost to Obama would be ZERO. All he has to do is waive his supposed right to privacy, and authorize Hawaii to sell certified copies to anyone who wants one.

ML/NJ