Joe the Plumber says McCain appalled me

Click here.

Joe Wurzelbacher lashed out Tuesday at former GOP presidential nominee John McCain, the man who made Wurzelbacher famous as “Joe the Plumber.”

Wurzelbacher told conservative radio host Glenn Beck that he felt “dirty” after “being on the campaign trail and seeing some of the things that take place.”

Recalling a conversation he had with McCain about the $700 billion financial industry bailout in September, Wurzelbacher said: “When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen.”

“I asked him some pretty direct questions,” he continued. “Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive — they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.”

Asked why he didn’t leave McCain’s campaign if he was “appalled” by the candidate, Wurzelbacher said, “honestly, because the thought of Barack Obama as president scares me even more.”

While Wurzelbacher was critical of McCain during the interview, he had nothing but praise for his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal,” he said.

Joe the Plumber says McCain appalled me

The New York Times already starting defending Obama

They are already starting to defend him. Check out this article

The New York Times already starting defending Obama

They all know

They all know

Gov. Of Illinois (D) gets arrested

Click here.

Do you think that he will sing like a canary to get a better deal? Will Barack Obama be involved in it?

Gov. Of Illinois (D) gets arrested

How has the recession affected you?

How has the recession affected you?

I lost my job back in June. I am now on unemployment because I can’t even get a job at Walmart. A big chunck of my 401 K is gone, and I am hearing that our federal government has plans to take that too. I worked hard for that money.

Even if it hasn’t affected you at all, I would like to know that also.

How has the recession affected you?

Court won't review Obama's eligibility to serve

This is all I could find on this story. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-birth-certificate1dec08,0,7258812.story

Court won't review Obama's eligibility to serve
By Tim Jones | Tribune correspondent
9:16 AM CST, December 8, 2008
UPDATE: The Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth.

The court did not comment on its order Monday rejecting the call by Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick, N.J., to intervene in the presidential election. Donofrio says that since Obama had dual nationality at birth -- his mother was American and his Kenyan father at the time was a British subject -- he cannot possibly be a "natural born citizen," one of the requirements the Constitution lists for eligibility to be president.

Donofrio also contends that two other candidates, Republican John McCain and Socialist Workers candidate Roger Calero, also are not natural-born citizens and thus ineligible to be president.

At least one other appeal over Obama's citizenship remains at the court. Philip J. Berg of Lafayette Hill, Pa., argues that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as Obama says and the Hawaii secretary of state has confirmed. Berg says Obama also may be a citizen of Indonesia, where he lived as a boy. Federal courts in Pennsylvania have dismissed Berg's lawsuit.

Court won't review Obama's eligibility to serve

Obama's Contempt for our Constitution

I found the following article very interesting.

Obama's Contempt for our Constitution


November 1, 2008
by Joan Swirsky

On February 10, 2007, Senator Barack Obama stood outside the Old State Capitol building in Illinois and announced his intention to run for the presidency.

"I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness, a certain audacity, to this announcement," Obama said. "I know I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change."

Of course, that depends on what his definition of “been there long enough” is. Actually, after he took office in November 2004, he spent a total of 143 days “on the job” – the number of days the senate was in session – before beginning his campaign for President of the United States. So now we know that, to Obama, “been there long enough” means that four months and change is quite enough preparation to be not only president but also the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, chief executive of the federal government, and leader of the free world.

At least he got the “audacity” part right.

In responding to disparagement from his opponents about the three years he spent as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama explained - with startlingly unselfconscious narcissism - that it was a good preparation for the top job in the world because it helped in "understanding where I'm coming from, who I believe in, who I'm fighting for and why I'm in this race."

"They haven't talked about the fact that I was a civil rights lawyer;" Obama added. "They haven't talked about the fact that I taught constitutional law..."

Okay, let's talk about that, especially because it is on the basis of a Constitutional challenge that Obama was sued by lawyer Philip J. Berg. In short, Berg has insisted that Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen, was possibly born on foreign soil to an American mother and Kenyan father, may hold dual American-Indonesian citizenship, and therefore does meet the eligibility requirements that are spelled out in exquisite detail in the United States Constitution. He asked that Obama's name be removed from the ballot.

Berg's case was dismissed on October 24 by Judge Barclay Surrick, but he promptly took the case before Judge David Souter of the Supreme Court, whose disposition is anticipated before the election on Tuesday, November 4 If no judgment is rendered, Berg anticipates that if Obama is elected, a Constitutional crisis will ensue. At this point, numerous citizens throughout the country have petitioned their own courts to disqualify Obama.

"I TAUGHT CONSTITUTIONAL LAW"

Well, I ask, what part of the Constitution did Obama not "get"?

In the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1, it states: No person except a natural born citizen or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.

Title 8 of the U.S. Code explains what "natural born citizen" means:

Anyone born inside the United States.
Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe.
Anyone born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
Anyone born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national.
Anyone born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year.
Anyone found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21.
Anyone born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time).
A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.
Anyone falling into these categories is considered natural-born, and is eligible to run for President or Vice President. These provisions allow the children of military families to be considered natural-born. For example, separate sections of the U.S. Code address territories that the United States has acquired over time, such as Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam. And the law contains one other section about the Panama Canal Zone and the nation of Panama. It states that anyone born in the Canal Zone or in Panama itself, on or after February 26, 1904, to a mother and/or father who is a United States citizen, was "declared" to be a United States citizen.

Because this section doesn't carry the words "natural-born" or "citizen at birth," this became an issue for Sen. John McCain when he ran for president in 2000. But that issue was resolved when it was found that McCain was considered a natural-born citizen under 8 USC 1401(c): "a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person.

If Obama meets the above criteria, then why has he still not produced a certifiably authentic birth certificate?

UNDISGUISED CONTEMPT

Selwyn Duke, in the American Thinker, writes, "Leftists...could attempt to change the Constitution so that it reflects their agenda, but this is a long, drawn-out, difficult process that requires, of all things, actual public support for your aims. And it's easier to change the courts - and install `ideological' justices who will impose left-wing orthodoxy from the bench - than the will of the subjects. Consider that liberals are ever trying to destroy tradition, as it stands in the way of progressivism. Consider that a consistent definition of liberalism - one that epitomizes the modern left (those progressives) - involves the desire to change the status quo. So what it means is that, by definition, a liberal who understands the Constitution cannot believe in it."

Aha! So that is why Obama told an NPR radio interviewer in 2001 that the Warren Court did not "break free from the essential constraints" found in the Constitution and therefore one of the "tragedies" of the civil rights movement was that "the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth..."

Upon hearing a tape of the interview, Ed Morrissey of CaptainsQuarters blog fame, "The government does not exist to determine the acceptable level of wealth of its individual citizens. For government to assume that role, it would have to end private property rights and assume all property belonged to the State. That is classic Marxism. Barack Obama complains that the Constitution is a `charter of negative liberties.' That's because the Constitution was intended as a limiting document, to curtail the power of the federal government vis-à-vis the states and the individual. Barack Obama wants to reverse that entirely. And that's radical change you'd better believe in, or else."

Rush Limbaugh also weighed in: "Barack Obama calls himself a `constitutional professor' or a `constitutional scholar.' In truth, Barack Obama was an anti-constitutionalist professor. He studied the Constitution and he flatly rejected it. He doesn't like the Constitution. He thinks it is flawed. Now I understand why he was so reluctant to wear the American flag lapel pin....he says that the Constitution `is a charter of negative liberties. This is nothing short of a condemnation of the Constitution, and he calls himself a professor. The greatest government, the freest society in the history of the world, and Professor Obama calls it a charter of negative liberties! To me, ladies and gentlemen, the Constitution is a gift of God. The Constitution is not a disappointment. It's a blessing. What kind of person does not understand the purpose and meaning of a document written by the greatest defenders of liberty the world has ever known? Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Washington, Hamilton - they created a charter of negative liberties?"

In the same radio interview, Obama said: "I think we can say that, uh, uh, the Constitution reflected a enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day and -- and, uh, -- and, uh, that the framers had that same blind spot."

"This is how he views the Supreme Court," Limbaugh railed. "And he will have the power to populate it with people who believe in those very things. How is he going to place his hand on the Bible and swear that he, Barack Hussein Obama, will uphold the Constitution that he feels reflects the nation's fundamental flaw?"

It is now no wonder that Obama has refused to provide his birth certificate! He wants to circumvent the Constitution and, by so doing, "prove" that it's a fundamentally flawed document, worthy of the efforts he and his radical far-left acolytes will lead to challenge every Amendment in the Bill of Rights, including: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of assembly, freedom to petition, and the prohibition against depriving any citizen of life, liberty, and property, et al.

THIS WAS THEIR FIRST STEP

In April of this year, a number of Obama's congressional supporters - including Gov. Claire McCaskill (D-MOi), Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and Sen. James Webb (D-VA) -proposed and passed a Resolution (S.Res.511) entitled: Recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen.

Duh.

This was the Resolution:

Whereas the Constitution of the United States requires that, to be eligible for the Office of the President, a person must be a `natural born Citizen' of the United States;
Whereas the term `natural born Citizen', as that term appears in Article II, Section 1, is not defined in the Constitution of the United States;
Whereas there is no evidence of the intention of the Framers or any Congress to limit the constitutional rights of children born to Americans serving in the military nor to prevent those children from serving as their country's President;
Whereas such limitations would be inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the `natural born Citizen' clause of the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the First Congress's own statute defining the term `natural born Citizen';
Whereas the well-being of all citizens of the United States is preserved and enhanced by the men and women who are assigned to serve our country outside of our national borders;
Whereas previous presidential candidates were born outside of the United States of America and were understood to be eligible to be President; and
Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a `natural born Citizen' under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United Calendar No. 715110th CONGRESS2d SessionS. RES. 511RESOLUTIONRecognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen.April 24, 2008. Reported without amendment States.
Just how dumb do McCaskill and Obama & Co. think the American people are? Here they attempt to create a blanket Resolution that says ALL foreign-born candidates are eligible for the U.S. presidency, when in fact McCain did not need this Resolution and neither did Bill Richardson when he ran for president this year. In fact, to my knowledge no presidential nominee in American history has ever needed a Resolution of this kind until Obama - who has still not produced a valid birth certificate! - entered the race.

So why this weird Resolution? Clearly so Obama could circumvent the Constitution he finds so distasteful.

According to Raymond S. Kraft, an attorney and writer: "The president, The Supreme Court justices, and all members of Congress, have taken an oath to defend and protect the Constitution and have an affirmative duty to protect the Constitution by doing whatever is necessary to insure that presidential (and congressional) candidates meet the Constitutional requirements for the offices they seek. It is a mandatory duty, and failure to do so violate their oaths of office. If they don't follow this oath in Obama's case, it will be the biggest swindle in American history, allowing Obama and the DNC to have concealed his true identity and lack of citizenship, thereby conning Democrats out of hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign contributions. If justice is served, dozens of `leading' Democrats should go to prison for fraud."
--------------------------------------------
Joan Swirsky (http://www.joanswirsky.com/) is a New York-based journalist and author who can be reached at joansharon@aol.com

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200811012434/editorial/obama-s-contempt-for-our-constitution.html

Obama's Contempt for our Constitution

Rep. Louie Gohmert: No More Taxpayer

I heard about this on Fox News yesterday, and decided to post it. This would mean that they wouldn't take out any taxes on our paychecks for the month of Jan. and Feb. This includes Social Security taxes. I am not sure about state taxes, though. The way they would pay for it would be to use the 350 Billion they have left. People would get the money faster than if they did another stimulous package. The only bad thing that I see about this, is that it would affect your income taxes at the end of the year. What are your thoughts on this?

Rep. Louie Gohmert: No More Taxpayer
Funds for Washington Fat Cats
Special Commentary from Scott Wheeler

A Republican congressman is looking for cosponsors of a bill he says could "electrify the American economy" by declaring a "tax holiday" for U.S. taxpayers in legislation that would use the remaining unspent bailout funds, about $350 billion, to provide a tax-free period for those who have paid for the current bailouts.

Louie Gohmert, a second-term congressman from Texas, proposed the plan last week, and while it may seem a little radical at first glance, Gohmert?s reasoning is compelling. He says, "We can save more home mortgages, increase employment, and boost economic growth for a lower price tag with this plan than with any centralized bureaucratic program, all by giving the power back to the taxpayers."

Clearly, it was an idea borne of frustration. "I am sick of Washington millionaires trying to decide which of their cronies should get the next wad of taxpayer money," Gohmert said in a statement.

Gohmert?s frustration, and his plan, have taken business-friendly tax cuts and melded them to the anti-bailout sentiment among taxpayers who pay their own bills and are now forced to pay the freight for big corporations who aren't paying theirs. A free-market populism of sorts.

His proposal is sure to strike a chord with those who recognize that bailouts are the opiate of government dependent corporations, but the question is, Will it be too aggressive for the timid GOP? If Republicans were smart they would grab hold of Gohmert?s idea, sharpen it to a point, and dare Democrats to oppose it.

What an amusing image that would be: The Democratic Party, which has ridden to power on a platform of class warfare, caught turning their backs on the people they claim to represent ? the middle class ? in order to help the very billionaires they have taught their constituents to hate.

This idea could help Republicans reclaim the mantle of free market economics that they forfeited by backing the bailout to begin with. It would also leave Democrat hypocrites looking more like Boss Tweed than Robert La Follette.

Political posturing aside, Gohmert?s idea should be embraced by Republicans because it is the right thing to do for the taxpayers, and as he has also pointed out, the plan makes more economic sense than bailing out large corporations, "Those in lower-income brackets who are hit the hardest by the FICA tax would see huge money back, and then they could choose who should benefit from their hard earned money."

He adds, "Even the self-employed and small business owners would receive a fantastic amount of their own much-needed money, and they will be able to invest that back into their businesses and even create the ability to hire more people."

I encourage our members to contact their Congressman and Senators to voice their support of Congressman Gohmert's proposal.

Scott Wheeler is executive director of The National Republican Trust PAC GOPtrust.com.

Rep. Louie Gohmert: No More Taxpayer

Chester Author: an interesting read

This is very interesting information that Leo Donofrio discovered while doing research on former presidents.

Naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com

HISTORICAL BREAKTHROUGH - PROOF: CHESTER ARTHUR CONCEALED HE WAS A BRITISH SUBJECT AT BIRTH
Posted in Uncategorized on December 6, 2008 by naturalborncitizen
December 6, 2008 6:36 PM

[I have collaborated on this with my sister and historian Greg Dehler, author of "Chester Allan Arthur", Published by Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2006 ISBN 1600210791, 9781600210792 192 pages. ]

I’ve been forwarded the actual naturalization record for William Arthur on microfiche, obtained from the Library of Congress. He was naturalized in New York State and became a United States citizen in August 1843.

Chester Arthur perpetrated a fraud as to his eligibility to be Vice President by spreading various lies about his parents’ heritage. President Arthur’s father, William Arthur, became a United States citizen in August 1843. But Chester Arthur was born in 1829. Therefore, he was a British Citizen by descent, and a dual citizen at birth, if not his whole life.

He wasn’t a “natural born citizen” and he knew it.

We’ve also uncovered many lies told by Chester Arthur to the press which kept this fact from public view when he ran for Vice President in 1880. Garfield won the election, became President in 1881, and was assassinated by a fanatical Chester Arthur supporter that same year.

How ironic that the allegations started by Arthur Hinman in his pamphlet entitled, “How A British Subject Became President”, have turned out to be true…but not for the reason Hinman suggested.

Hinman alleged that Arthur was born in Ireland or Canada as a British subject. It was bunk. It’s been definitively established that Chester Arthur was born in Vermont. But Hinman turns out to be correct anyway since Chester Arthur was a British citizen/subject by virtue of his father not having naturalized as a United States citizen until Chester Arthur was almost 14 years old.

That means Chester Arthur was a British subject at the time of his birth.

We’ve uncovered news clips exposing a thorough trail of lies, all of which served to obscure Chester Arthur’s true history of having been born as a British citizen.

Chester Arthur’s lies came during his Vice Presidential campaign in 1880. His fraudulent attempt to obfuscate family history provides context and evidence that in 1880 it was recognized that having been born as a British citizen would make one ineligible to be President or VP. His falsification of family history indicates he was aware of POTUS ineligibility.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Chester Arthur was in politics at the time of the 14th Amendment’s ratification. He was a lawyer and a politician while the 14th Amendment was being debated. It was ratified in 1867. In that same year Chester Arthur rose to become chairperson of the Executive Committee of the State Republican Committee. He would have been fully cognizant of the natural born citizen issue and that should he ever run for POTUS or VP, problems could arise.

He would have known that if anybody found out his father naturalized after he was born, he could never be President or Vice President.

CHESTER’S LIES

The definitive biography on Chester Arthur is “Gentleman Boss” by Thomas Reeves. It’s an exhaustive reference. Many of the blanks in Chester Arthur’s legend were filled in by this book which utilized interviews with family members and authentic documents like the Arthur family Bible. It was a necessary work since old Chester Arthur was a very wily protector of his strange history. He burned all of his papers. (See page 2365.)

“Gentleman Boss” establishes, on page 4, that Chester Arthur’s father William was born in Ireland, 1796, and emigrated to Canada in 1818 or 1819. His mother Malvina was born in Vermont and his parents eloped in Canada in 1821. They had their first child, Regina, in Dunham, Canada on March 8, 1822.

By no later than 1824, the Arthur family had moved to Burlington, Vermont. Their second child Jane was born there on March 14, 1824. Chester Arthur was their fifth child, and he was born on October 5, 1829. Reeves established these facts (and the correct date of Chester Arthur’s birth) from the Arthur family Bible.

From “Gentleman Boss”, page 202 and 203:

“…Hinman was hired, apparently by democrats, to explore rumors that Arthur had been born in a foreign country, was not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and was thus, by the Constitution, ineligible for the vice-presidency. By mid-August, Hinman was claiming that Arthur was born in Ireland and had been brought to the United States by his father when he was fourteen. Arthur denied the charge and said that his mother was a New Englander who had never left her native country — a statement every member of the Arthur family knew was untrue.”

Arthur’s mother had lived in Canada with her husband and even had her first child there.

In the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, an article interviewing Chester Arthur about Hinman’s accusations was published on August 13, 1880. In that article, Chester Arthur defended himself as follows:

“My father, the late Rev. William Arthur, D.D., was of Scotch blood, and was a native of the North of Ireland. He came to this country when he was eighteen years of age, and resided here several years before he was married.”

This was another blatant lie. His father emigrated from Ireland to Canada at the age of 22 or 23. William Arthur didn’t come to the United States until sometime between March 1822 - when his first child was born in Dunham, Canada - and March 1824 - when his second child was born in Burlington, Vermont. The youngest he could have been when he came to Vermont was 26.

On August 16, 1880 Chester Arthur told the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper that at the time of his birth, his father was forty years old. Another blatant lie. His father would have been only thirty-three years old when Chester was born.

In that same article he lied that his father settled in Vermont and reiterated the lie that William came here at the age of eighteen. This age discrepancy was exposed in the August 19, 1880 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle in an article written by Hinman .

It was very convenient for Arthur that Hinman kept the focus on the extraordinary and false claim - that Arthur was born abroad - while the more subtle and true eligibility issue stayed hidden in plain site.

FATEFUL FACTS

I contacted Greg Dehler a few days ago after finding a reference in his Chester Arthur biography which said William Arthur became a citizen in 1843. I wrote to Greg and asked him about the reference. As fate would have it, Mr. Dehler, after checking his notes, wrote back to me to say that he got it from Thomas Reeves’ book, “Gentleman Boss”.

I went to the library the next day and devoured the Reeves book. But the reference to William’s naturalization was not there. Greg also knew I was interested in the Hinman scandal and pointed me to the Brooklyn Eagle search engine from the Brooklyn public library.

I began poking around and discovered a few of the lies mentioned above.

Earlier today I was telling my sister that this matter of Chester Arthur having falsified his parents’ personal history might lead to a very important revision of history. I suggested we put together an outline of a book as we might be able to prove that Chester Arthur was a fraudulent President and that would be quite a story. My sister thought I was jumping the gun a bit in that we really needed to define when William Arthur was naturalized before we could get excited.

About an hour later I received an email from Greg Dehler. I’ll let you read it:

Leo,

Needless to say I was more than a little embarrassed that you could not locate the reference in Reeves. I thought that was odd because my note concerning William Arthur was with the Reeves notes. I conducted a more thorough search and found the source. It was in the Chester A. Arthur Papers (what is left of them at least) at the LOC. I own the microfilm reels and made a copy for you which is attached. The Washington County Clerk in NYS dates it August 31, 1843. How does this affect Chet?

Greg

I almost fell off my chair when I downloaded the William Arthur naturalization PDF and was staring at the shifting sands of history.

Chester Arthur had something to hide.

He had all of his papers burned which was very odd for a President.

Arthur lied about his mother’s time in Canada. He lied about his father’s time in Canada. He lied about his father’s age plus where and when he got off the boat from Ireland. By obscuring his parents’ personal history he curtailed the possibility that anybody might discover he was born many years before his father had naturalized.

When Chester runs for VP, Hinman comes along essentially demanding to see Chester’s birth certificate to prove he was born in the United States. This causes a minor scandal easily thwarted by Chester, because Chester was born in Vermont…but at the same time, the fake scandal provides cover for the real scandal.

Is this the twilight zone?

William Arthur was not a naturalized citizen at the time of Chester Arthur’s birth, and therefore Chester Arthur was a British subject at birth and not eligible to be Vice President or President.

Chester Arthur lied about his father’s emigration to Canada and the time his mother spent there married to William. Some sixty years later, Chester lied about all of this and kept his candidacy on track. Back then it would have been virtually impossible to see through this, especially since Arthur’s father had died in 1875 and had been a United States citizen for thirty-two years.

And without knowledge of his father’s time in Canada, or the proper timeline of events, potential researchers in 1880 would have been hard pressed to even know where to start.

Reeves proved that Arthur changed his birth year from 1829 to 1830. I don’t know if that would have protected recorded information. It’s another lie. I just don’t know what it means.

Because Chester Arthur covered up his British citizenship, any precedent he might have set that the country has had a President born of an alien father is nullified completely as Chester Arthur was a usurper to the Presidency. He wouldn’t have been on the ticket if it was public knowledge. Nobody knew Arthur was a British subject because nobody looked in the right place for the truth.

And it’s no precedent to follow.

Leo C. Donofrio COPYRIGHT 2008

Chester Author: an interesting read

The Real Bill Ayers

He says he isn't a terrorist, although he says that he didn't do enough in the war movement. Yeah, right. Check out his article in the New York Times.

Click here.
The Real Bill Ayers
By WILLIAM AYERS
Published: December 5, 2008
IN the recently concluded presidential race, I was unwillingly thrust upon the stage and asked to play a role in a profoundly dishonest drama. I refused, and here’s why.

Unable to challenge the content of Barack Obama’s campaign, his opponents invented a narrative about a young politician who emerged from nowhere, a man of charm, intelligence and skill, but with an exotic background and a strange name. The refrain was a question: “What do we really know about this man?”

Secondary characters in the narrative included an African-American preacher with a fiery style, a Palestinian scholar and an “unrepentant domestic terrorist.” Linking the candidate with these supposedly shadowy characters, and ferreting out every imagined secret tie and dark affiliation, became big news.

I was cast in the “unrepentant terrorist” role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the “Two Minutes Hate” scene from George Orwell’s “1984,” when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing.

With the mainstream news media and the blogosphere caught in the pre-election excitement, I saw no viable path to a rational discussion. Rather than step clumsily into the sound-bite culture, I turned away whenever the microphones were thrust into my face. I sat it out.

Now that the election is over, I want to say as plainly as I can that the character invented to serve this drama wasn’t me, not even close. Here are the facts:

I never killed or injured anyone. I did join the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s, and later resisted the draft and was arrested in nonviolent demonstrations. I became a full-time antiwar organizer for Students for a Democratic Society. In 1970, I co-founded the Weather Underground, an organization that was created after an accidental explosion that claimed the lives of three of our comrades in Greenwich Village. The Weather Underground went on to take responsibility for placing several small bombs in empty offices — the ones at the Pentagon and the United States Capitol were the most notorious — as an illegal and unpopular war consumed the nation.

The Weather Underground crossed lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense. Our effectiveness can be — and still is being — debated. We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism, and the attacks on property, never on people, were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war.

Peaceful protests had failed to stop the war. So we issued a screaming response. But it was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends.

I cannot imagine engaging in actions of that kind today. And for the past 40 years, I’ve been teaching and writing about the unique value and potential of every human life, and the need to realize that potential through education.

I have regrets, of course — including mistakes of excess and failures of imagination, posturing and posing, inflated and heated rhetoric, blind sectarianism and a lot else. No one can reach my age with their eyes even partly open and not have hundreds of regrets. The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long.

The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.

We — the broad “we” — wrote letters, marched, talked to young men at induction centers, surrounded the Pentagon and lay down in front of troop trains. Yet we were inadequate to end the killing of three million Vietnamese and almost 60,000 Americans during a 10-year war.

The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went a step further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the same room at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation, shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of a thousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they share ideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for each other’s behavior. There is a long and sad history of guilt by association in our political culture, and at crucial times we’ve been unable to rise above it.

President-elect Obama and I sat on a board together; we lived in the same diverse and yet close-knit community; we sometimes passed in the bookstore. We didn’t pal around, and I had nothing to do with his positions. I knew him as well as thousands of others did, and like millions of others, I wish I knew him better.

Demonization, guilt by association, and the politics of fear did not triumph, not this time. Let’s hope they never will again. And let’s hope we might now assert that in our wildly diverse society, talking and listening to the widest range of people is not a sin, but a virtue.

William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of “Fugitive Days” and a co-author of the forthcoming “Race Course.”

The Real Bill Ayers