Arizona's Gun Rights Bill Above US Law?

NOT a Constitutional scholar. Image from TPM.

Okay, what kind of goofy shit is this? Honestly, are they stupid, or just spoiling for a fight? A state can't pass a law that invalidates US law, or punishes federal officials for enforcing those laws. That's just nutty. Oh wait, I forget. This is Arizona, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio seems like a good guy to keep electing. A state where a total nut bar like Jan Brewer can be reelected as Governor. I think we need to let this one go along with Texas. Can we build them a bridge across New Mexico?

[Excerpt]

Arizona Republicans Push Their Own Gun Secession Bill

A group of Republicans in the Arizona House of Representatives are pushing a bill that would limit federal gun laws’ reach into the state. The bill, known as HB 2291, would, among other things, make it a Class 6 felony for a federal government employee or official to enforce federal laws or regulations of firearms, accessories, and ammunition that are owned or manufactured within state lines and remain within state lines. . .

Read more at: Talking Points Memo

BirtherFest '12 with Pat Boone and Sheriff Joe Arpaio!

Let's just get this out of the way: "Birthers" are gullible, very likely racist fools, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio is King Moron. I don't say this because I don't like them (for the record, I don't) or from a place of ignorance and supposition. I've been following the birther phenomenon since its infancy, and have personally interacted with them both in their spaces and in mine.  They are tremendously argumentative, but don't argue logically. If you squash one of their (many, varied and often self-contradictory) parts to their theories, they change the subject. They have no problem with ignoring things that don't fit their narrative, and experts at hammering in puzzle pieces that don't really fit. They're insulting when you get a lick in, and falsely inquisitive and "concern trollish" if you manage to calm them down.

Image from Phoenix New Times
Click to embiggen.

The difference between a birther and any other conspiracy theorist is that in other conspiracies: 9/11 truthers, JFK conspiracy believers, moon landing deniers; all have at least semi-plausible reasons for their beliefs, at least at their beginnings. The moon landing was pivotal in the space race, and in the Cold War, making people wonder if it was faked in order to win that battle. The "magic bullet" theory in the JFK assassination is seemingly impossible. The events of 9/11 are difficult to explain, such as how it is that our military was unable to intercept four hijacked planes, how WTC 7 collapsed, and several other issues. All of those theories snowballed to ridiculous lengths, and all have those nagging self-contradictory (and implausible) elements. But all of them have parts that can make an otherwise sane, rational person go, hmmmmm. . . 

Birtherism isn't much like that. Oh, maybe for a minute, when the President's long-form birth certificate was found to have (gasp!) layers!!!1!!11! you might do a Scooby-Doo "HUNH?!?" Until you figure out that it is merely due to the scanning process (debunked myself, here). But there was no reason to suspect that Barack Obama was born anywhere other than Hawaii, as he has always maintained. There is no plausible storyline or evidence that puts Mrs. Obama in Kenya in August of 1961. None. Zero. Zip. Remember, this was a time of much more limited (and expensive) air travel and communications technology. The fact that two different papers had birth announcements proclaiming (in 1961!) Obama's birth puts a nail squarely in the birther coffin. Except, that birtherism is sort of undead, impervious to truthy wooden stakes and rational silver bullets. They are basically now, after-birthers, and they cling to their multiple theories even though they've all been disproved. If you don't believe me, you can check out virtually every birther nugget--all debunked--at ObamaConspiracy.org, as I've said several times before.

Still, amazingly enough, though their numbers have thinned, the after-birthers have got some heavy hitters on their side. Well, such as they are. There's a BirtherCon coming up in September, and the average age of its two biggest stars, one-time singer Pat Boone and Arizona's batshit crazy Sheriff Joe Arpaio--is 79 years old. I don't know if these men and the others appearing at the event are so stupid and/or gullible to believe in what they're saying. They may just be in it for the acclaim and the paycheck. But the swarm that attends is going to be made up of some very scary dudes.

[Excerpt]

Joe Arpaio, Pat Boone and Teabaggers Galore Hold BirtherFest September 22 at Celebrity Theatre

. . .The flier for the event promises that the 78 year-old Christian crooner will sing as well as speak. Wonder if he'll do any tunes from his 1997 album In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy. Always loved his cover of "Smoke on the Water." Not sure who the old biddies will be swoonin' for more, Boone, or geriatric heartthrob Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who'll be presiding at the event as Birther-in-Chief. . .

Read more at: Phoenix New Times

Conspiracy Corner: Hawaii Fights Back, Arpaio Proven Wrong

It is fortunate that in what is often a FOX "News"/Rush Limbaugh-led media, that the "birther" conspiracy theory(s) haven't gone completely mainstream. Sure, it's big enough that many people know what it is about. But it is the rare individual who takes any of it seriously.

Image from Huffington Post

The birthers threatened to break through on Tuesday, when Arizona's batshit crazy Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his anachronistically named "Cold Case Posse" had a big press conference. Sheriff Joe pronounced Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate (actually the PDF scan of it) a forgery. He had the alleged testimony of a 95-year-old hospital worker, and some 50-year-old penciled notations. And that was really about it. One of those notations was a "9" written in the margin. Arpaio used this to declare the document a forgery. But he and his posse lied about what the 9 meant. Surprise, surprise!

[Excerpt]


Code “9”: the Cold Case Posse’s big lie

I have debunked so much demonstrably false “birther evidence” that I sometimes lose perspective about levels of “bunk” and levels of “demonstrable.” Based on the reactions of others, I may have done something last year that applies to something high on the “bunk” scale today as well as high on the “demonstrable” scale amounting to what Joe Biden might call a BFD, and the smoking gun showing the Cold Case Posse fabricated evidence and lied. . .

Read more at: Obama Conspiracy Theories


[Excerpt]


Hawaii strikes back

The State of Hawaii has repeatedly confirmed the indisputable evidence of President Obama’s birth in Hawaii. An exhaustive accounting of this is provided on the State Department of Health (DOH) website (http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/obama.html). When this issue last arose in May, the Washington Post noted that “the Hawaii Department of Health has released both the short and long forms of the president’s birth certificate; and that all this information, along with clear-as-a-bell explanations, is available to the public online. . .”

Read more at: Obama Conspiracy Theories 

Arpaio: Conspiracy bigger than Watergate

I have an honest question. Is Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona stupid? Is he gullible, easily duped? Is he easily confused? Or is he, perhaps, an opportunistic, lying, fame whore limelight seeker?  Because, the whole "birther" conspiracy theory set. . .they're bonkers. They're nuts. Their head cheerleader is the daffy Orly Taitz, the Gabor-like combination lawyer/dentist/realtor. Every, single (and I mean every, single) claim in this ridiculous theory has been debunked. Over and over again.

Click to embiggen.

I'll give you a quick one: They say to this day that President Obama's "grandmother" admitted that Obama was born in Kenya. A) she was his step-grandmother, and B) she was being mistranslated, and corrected the record in the same interview. They just cut that part out. That's how they work in tinfoil hat land. But Arpaio's corner of the conspiracy is the birth certificate.

For years, the birthers said--seemingly every other sentence--that if Obama just released his "long form" birth certificate, "all of this would just go away." The conspiracy would go poof, and they'd go on with their lives. But they didn't. Because, you see, all a good conspiracy theory needs is more layers. And--unwittingly--the White House gave them more layers. Boy, howdy.

You see, the electronic version of the Hawaii certified certificate of live birth was scanned into Adobe Reader. If you do that on default settings, the scanner tries to break the image into sections, ostensibly for optical character recognition (OCR), but who knows what good it actually does. It's kind of random, as you might expect for a computer that can't think or reason. So, when you open the file in a graphics program, you watch it assemble itself before your eyes. I got a half step into conspiracy world for about ninety seconds. Because, hey, it has layers!

My (gay) marriage certificate.
Embiggen all you want, it's low-res!

Very quickly, I realized, a) this is not the actual document, it's a scan of it; b) if they were going to forge the document, they'd do it on the physical specimen, not in the online version; and c) the White House has resources most forgers couldn't dream of. If they were going to forge it, it would be fucking undetectable. But conspiracy theorists don't try to step out of their bubbles when presented with something new. No, they seek to incorporate whatever comes their way that feeds the conspiracy, and eject what doesn't. On the surface, the layers seem hinky. And that's really all they need.

Though my deductive reasoning concluded that the layered document was normal, I decided to perform an experiment, to see if Adobe Reader really behaved that way. If I could reproduce a similar effect, then I would be debunking the whole "layers" hoo-ha! So, I cobbled my ancient G4 PowerBook (since replaced) to my ancient-er HP ScanJet 3C, and scanned my City of Palm Springs Marriage Certificate. The results (and ensuing pointless argument with a birther) can be viewed here. And anybody thinking there is anything to birtherism (or Arpaio's tilting at windmills), should explore the site linked below. I'm serious: they debunk everything.

[Excerpt]

Arpaio: Conspiracy bigger than Watergate 

The Arizona Republic quotes Sheriff Joe Arpaio offering a conspiracy-based explanation why the media has universally panned the investigation by a group of birthers who used his office to publicize their ideas. . .

Read more at: Obama Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy Corner: Breitbart Was Totally Killed by White House!

I didn't mean for this to become the "all Breitbart, all the time" blog, and predicted I'd never talk about him in my most recent post. But I added the caveat that I'd drop the subject unless there was a surprise. I think this qualifies, thought it should probably fall into the "shouldn't surprise you, but still does" category. I bring to you the possible replacement conspiracy theory to the birthers and the after-birthers (ew): the Breitbarters! They're so crazy, that after a harmless (but initially suspicious) package was delivered to Rush Limbaugh, they'd incorporated that into the theory. This shit moves fast these days, kids.

[Excerpts]

"I think he was so effective that he was murdered... and there are those that openly wanted him gone."

"If they really wanted him gone, then they could not have chosen a better time. His death sucked the air out of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s press conference on Obamao’s forged documents."

[Editor: LMFO!]

All screen caps found at JoeMyGod.com

"He was walking alone late at night. Someone could have poisoned his drink in the bar, or got him with a KGB-style umbrella injecting in the calf. Motive: he was a very active and influential opponent of the far left-wing forces who openly confronted the Occupy creeps, and recently revealed that he had damning videos of the Dictator-in-Chief, who happens to be from Chicago, a bedrock of mob-style hits. Can’t rule anything out yet."

[Ed.: Impressive!]

"I'm surprised that it has taken this long. Expect more now that the Media has proudly provided [Rush's] address to the idiots on the left. Gated community might slow them down."

"Very little mention of the jogger seen running by Breitbart minutes before he collapsed, according to the witness."


[Ed.: Quick! Call CSI: Brentwood!]


"Breitbart ...warning. Limbaugh... Beck... Somebody trying to silence free speech?"

[Ed.: BECK? Who on earth cares about Beck?]

"So sorry about Breitbart, and now Rush. God save us from the loony left. Please let Rush and family be okay. They really want to shut us up, but if it’s war they want, it’s was they will get!!!!"

[Ed.: Fellow libs, they're on to us! Let's hope they don't have gun racks on their Rascal scooters!]

"[In response to the message above:] Yep, they are just BEGGING for it. And they shall recieve [sic]."

[Ed.: Wow. They've declared war on a mythical "they."]

"Way too many Freepers are conspiratorially-minded. Men who have defective hearts have heart attacks in their 40s which are often fatal. Sometimes things are as they are and there is no need to attribute them to 'outside forces.'"


[Ed.: Huh. A FReeper "concern troll" or a rare voice of reason?]

"Makes me wonder if the libs are trying to scare us into keeping obama [sic] in the WH by offing conservatives. I hope our four candidates have guards. Obama comes from the most corrupt sity [sic] in the nation and I put nothing past them. Firdt [sic] Breitbart and then Rush. To coincidental. It is WAR!!"

[Ed.: I was unaware that Honolulu was the corruption capital!]

"If his family were smart, they’d insist on an independent autopsy. I wouldn’t trust an opinion by anyone in bed with LAPD and Hollywood libs."

[Ed.: As with all conspiracy theories, there are many--maybe hundreds, maybe thousands--of co-conspirators.]

"Do you think the ME isn’t in on it?"

[Ed.: See?]

"It will take blood...eventually."

[Ed.: Somebody should really be keeping an eye on these people.]

"Sounds like 'they' are warning some folks. 'Don’t be like Brietbart [sic].'"

[Ed.: Wow.]

 "He could have been poisoned when he ate with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dorn."

"I had the SAME thought. Beck has said in recent weeks bad things he won't go into any detail about have been happening to his family, himself and staff."


[Ed.: Disturbed minds think alike! And again with Beck? Only this crowd thinks Beck is anything other than a loon.]


"Andrew was killed.......I hope someone has those videos of the liar in cheif [sic]"

[Ed.: OMG!  Barack Hussein Obama must've been the mysterious jogger! It's all making sense now!]

"It’s mathematically possible to calculate the chance that a 42 [sic] year old would die of a heart attack in the same month that he is going to release politically damaging information. What you do is you determine the chance of the first event and multiply it by the percentage representing the second event.I’ll let you know, the probability of the first event is less than 0.01. Necessarily, the probability of both events is less than the probability of the first."

[Ed.: Must be that new math. That new crazy math.]

"I still cannot get over it. Maybe, just maybe, he had to fake his own death to save his family?"

[Ed.: And now, we have an alternate conspiracy theory. Interesting. . .]

"Weird day. Andrew Breitbart is silenced. Sheriff Joe reveals the birth certificate is an obvious forgery. And Rush gets a bomb scare.  The Rush one is interesting as maybe more credible threats had been recently made to his security team and they were on high alert. Weirder and weirder."

[Ed.: Breitbart looked 15 years older than he was, Rush's "scare" was a false alarm, and Sheriff Joe is a loony birfer. But I guess this is keeping these weirdos busy.]


All quotes found at the right-wing central command, FreeRepublic.com. I'd give you a link, but you can find this crap all over their site.