Free Republic

Down in Columbus, I’d say that birther attorney Orly Taitz has guaranteed herself a $10,000 fine at the hands of U.S. District Judge Clay Land. According to the Columbus Ledger Enquirer, Taitz’ most recent filing accuses Land of having met secretly in Columbus with Attorney General Eric Holder to conspire about ways to hide evidence of Obama’s true birthplace. For that and other reasons, she demands that Land recuse himself from the case. Her evidence for that rather stunning charge? An affidavit from a fellow birther claiming to have seen someone resembling Holder in a Columbus cafe across the street...

The BBC has seen the birth certificate of South African athlete Caster Semenya, which states that the new 800m world champion is female. Ms Semanya, 18, has been told to take a gender test after several remarkable improvements in recent performances.

Birthers are a loose knit cadre of internet individuals having reason to question the eligibility of Barack Obama to be President of the United States. At the core, Birthers simply want to know if our elected president meets the criteria laid out in Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution which specifies that a president must be at least Age 35, 14 years a resident, and a natural born Citizen. Natural born is the sore point as the country’s founders specifically intended anyone holding presidential office have no allegiance to any other country than the newly formed United...

President Obama may be using his political action committee funds to stomp out eligibility lawsuits brought by Americans, as he has paid more than $1.35 million to his top lawyer since the election. Obama for America, Obama's 2008 political campaign, merged with the Democratic National Committee in January and is now known as Organizing for America. The grassroots army that some refer to as "Obama 2.0" is still collecting financial contributions. Federal Election Commission records for "Obama for America" show that the lobby organization has paid international law firm Perkins Coie exactly $1,352,378.95 since the 2008 election. FEC records show...

Political conspiracy theories – like the so-called “birther” allegation that Obama is not a legitimate US citizen – are as old as the nation. In the late 1700s, it was rumored that the Freemasons were actually a Satanic cult and George Washington was a member who was elevated to the presidency so they could control the country. Such views were generally held by a few fringe groups and were viewed by the mainstream culture as a bit nutty. But in the past few decades, conspiracy theories have tended to become a part of mainstream political culture, say political analysts. They...

August 03, 2009 04:22 PM ETThese so called Birthers won't accept Obama's citizenship regardless of any proof, so why do the media continue to pay attention to them [Poll on Birthers: Most Southerners, Republicans Question Obama Citizenship, usnews.com]? I think it is time for the media to move on and no longer give them a mouthpiece. There is no investigation here anymore, and this was cleared up way before Obama was elected. These people are basically just angry that Obama is president. The childish whining will not stop until the Republicans are back in power ... and at this rate...

The folks over at Media Matters are going negative ... against CNN. Specifically, they've bought airtime on MSNBC, Fox News and, ahem, CNN to run an ad criticizing the venerable cable network for Lou Dobbs' habit of treating the Birther conspiracy movement as legitimate. Here's the fun part: They've bought time during Dobbs' show. As Greg Sargent points out, that puts CNN in the position of airing an anti-Dobbs during his show, or killing it and creating a bigger story. My first question was: Are they running the ad in the south? The answer according to Sargent is they're running...

What has the world come to when Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly represent the rational side of the Republican Party?

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3179840 As some of you may have noticed, recently the Republican Party has begun cracking down on the "birthers", realizing that openly supporting the most crazy members of your party is, well, problematic for appealing to non-crazy people. This, of course, leads to even more crazy, as they turn on their leaders for hiding the "truth". It's a drat shame to let all this crazy go to waste, when properly cultivated and raised it could be so much more. So welcome to the first FreeRepublic Infiltration Contest! We're going to infiltrate freerepublic as agents provocateur. This can take several forms;...

<p>WASHINGTON — The false allegation that President Barack Obama was born in another country is more than a fact-free hit job.</p> <p>Marked by accusations and backstabbing, it's the story of how a small but intense movement called "birthers" rose from a handful of people prone to seeing conspiracies, aided by the Internet, magnified without evidence by eager radio and cable TV hosts, and eventually ratified by a small group of Republican politicians working to keep the story alive on the floors of Congress and the campaign trails of the Midwest.</p>

I'm not taking a position one way or the other, I have been watching the "Birther" controversy with interest. In answering my question, please go further than the obvious, in other words what would be the outfall and how would you handle the eventual constitutional crisis? Would Biden become prez? If he is no longer viable, would it then fall to Pelosi? I'm asking the birther supporters to think long range about this.