The Council Has Spoken!! This Weeks’ Watcher’s Council Results – 12/13/13

The House Passed the Ryan-Murray Budget, 332-94

The Budget Deal’s Sneaky Tax Increases

Boehner Attacks Conservative Groups

Boehner Declares War on the American People

It’s war! Senate gears up for epic battle as ZERO Republicans line up to support budget agreement (and Democrats need to find at least five) 

Breitbart Exclusive -- Palin: Read My Lipstick: No New Taxes

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” – Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar”

“By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.” – Adolf Hitler on media

“What difference does it make?” – Hillary Rodham Clinton, Benghazi hearings

This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s The Mixed Legacy Of Nelson Mandela, is my obituary for South African leader Nelson Mandela, whose death literally sparked an orgy of amnesia as both media and politicians rushed to worship at his altar. However, as I point out, his legacy was extremely mixed and comparisons to men like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, were ludicrous. Here’s a slice:

Former South African leader Nelson Mandela has passed away at the age of 95, from complications resulting from a lung infection.

Since he was essentially a secular saint, the hagiographies, the emotional tributes and the kicky sound bites will be in abundance. His place in history is assured, because like other secular saints, burning incense and making offerings at his altar is seen to confer virtue on the worshiper, especially if they’re white.

Nelson Mandela was an important figure in contemporary history, no doubt. But who was Nelson Mandela really? What did he accomplish? What is his legacy?

That’s a more complicated and nuanced story that you’re unlikely to hear about much in the medias frenzy over the next week or so. Because it doesn’t quite fit the script for a secular saint. And the complexity can be imagined when you learn that Mandela was the proud recipient of both the U.S. Medal of Freedom awarded to him by President Obama and the Order of Lenin, given to him by the Soviet Union, hardly a bastion of freedom or even simple human decency.

Certainly, he looked and sounded like a secular saint. A member of a family of Xhosa royalty, his tall, dignified bearing and his measured speech could almost have been cooked up by a Hollywood casting agent.

Nelson Mandela was born in Mvezo, a small village in the eastern part of South Africa’s cape province. Coming from a prominent family , he received excellent schooling in South Africa’s best schools so he could work as a councilor for the the Xhosa’s Thembu royal house. He later attended University of Fort Hare, an elite black institution in Alice, Eastern Cape. There he first got his political indoctrination in anti-colonialism and his introduction to Marxism. Traveling to Johannesburg in 1941, he first ran into the African National Congress in the person of Walter Sisulu, then a member of the fledgling African National Congress (ANC) and the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). In Johannesburg, Mandela was taken under the wing of Lazar Sidelsky, a Left wing Jewish lawyer sympathetic to the ANC and a partner in the law firm of Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman, who gave Nelson Mandela a job as a law clerk.

In those days,the ANC was essentially a non-violent social justice movement that lobbied for black rights and engaged in local politics. However, like many similar organizations in the West, it had been targeted by the Soviet Comintern and was already infiltrated by members of the CPSA as well as by actual Soviet agents.

While the evidence is mixed over whether Nelson Mandela ever joined the communist party, he frequently attended their meetings, and many of his closest associates, like Lionel ‘Rusty’ Bernstein, Joe Slovo, the long-time leader of the CPSA, his wife Ruth First, Gaur Redebe, Walter Sisulu and Nat Bregman definitely were, and some of them might have been actual Soviet agents. All of them were under ‘party discipline just as American communists were, which meant that their marching orders came directly from the Comintern and the Kremlin, no deviations allowed. Many members of CPSA became part of the ANC and the CPSA is still a part of the ANC’s political coalition today. Mandela’s openly expressed admiration and later friendship for communist dictators, his views on nationalization of South Africa’s major industries and government redistribution of wealth and his subsequently receiving the Order of Lenin from the Soviets shows that at best, he was a communist sympathizer.

After South Africa’s 1948 general election, the Afrikaner-led Herenigde Nasionale Party took power, uniting with the Afrikaner Party to form the National Party. They implemented the system of racial segregation known as apartheid. Mandela and his supporters were able to depose the existing ANC President Alfred Bitini Xuma at that time, who favored non-violence in seeking black civil rights and was an open anti-Communist. As Mandela wrote later in his memoirs, “We had now guided the ANC to a more radical and revolutionary path.”

In 1955, Mandela finally went fully over to the idea of using terrorism as as a political tool, or as he put it, the ANC “had no alternative to armed and violent resistance. ” In this, he was greatly influenced by his open admiration of the tactics of Mao Tse Tung and Fidel Castro.

In fact, the first ‘revolutionary’ act of Mandela’s was to send communist party apparatchnik and ANC member Walter Sisulu to the People’s Republic of China to obtain weapons. The PRC turned Mandela down, officially because they felt the ANC was not prepared for Mao-style guerilla warfare, but perhaps more likely because they were already deeply involved in arming and training the Viet Minh in their attempt to overthrow the Diem government in South Vietnam and similar operations with groups like the Pathet Lao elsewhere in South East Asia. They also likely underestimated Mandela and the ANC’s ability to win a war where resupply would be so difficult and no communist-controlled havens were nearby.

However, Mandela and the ANC began to collect whatever weapons and explosives they could get hold of and prepare for armed struggle on their own,while continuing to work on political agitation against the apartheid regime.

It was at this time that Mandela, inspired by Castro’s guerilla groups like 26th of July Movement and the Viet Minh founded his own terrorist elite, Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”, abbreviated as MK) with communists Walter Sisulu and Joe Slovo. The MK made their debut with 57 bombings on Dingane’s Day (16 December) 1961, followed by further attacks on New Year’s Eve.MK killed civilians and military alike, and two of their more famous operations were the Church Street bombing and the Magoo’s Bar bombing, both of which targeted civilians and were designed for maximum carnage..

The MK and an ANC group run by Mandela’s wife Winnie called the “Mandela United Football Club” were also responsible for the murder, torture and kidnapping of both whites and black political opponents and their families who opposed ‘armed struggle’. Much of this came out through Mandela’s own Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated crimes committed under apartheid by both the government and the ANC. The 1998 findings of that investigation were suppressed by President Mandela.

Winnie Mandela is credited with introducing the practice of using necklacing (see video), forcing a gas or oil soaked tire over the head and shoulders to pin the arms of the victim and then lighting it on fire.Her quote? “With our matches and our necklaces we will liberate this country.” She has never served a day in jail, and still sits on the ANC executive committee.

Bob Simon says Mandela was a "normal human being?" Since I, too, want to be normal, will have to brush up on "Necklacing."

It’s worth recalling that the ANC was officially named a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department and many other western nations. That designation wasn’t rescinded officially by the State Department until 1990.

Much more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was The Babalu blog with Gone is Fidel’s greatest admirer, submitted by Joshuapundit. It’s a Cuban blogger’s view of Nelson Mandela and his love affair with Fidel Castor that is must reading.

Okay, here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

• *First place with 5 2/3 votes! – Joshuapundit – The Mixed Legacy Of Nelson Mandela
• Second place *t* with 2 votes – Bookworm Room – Pope Francis’s Marxist economic analysis reflects the Left’’s long march through the Catholic Church
• Second place *t* with 2 votes – Liberty’s Spirit – Apparently Antisemitism Doesn’t Exist in Europe Anymore
• Third place with 1 2/3 vote – Nice Deb – Legal Expert At Today’s Judiciary Hearing: ‘The Check on Executive lawlessness is Impeachment’ (Video)
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – The Right Planet – Is the President a Malignant Narcissist?
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room – About One of My Articles and Allen West
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Glittering Eye – What Should We Remember About December 7th?
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Simply Jews – Yousef Munayyer, Open Zion and Nelson Mandela
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – VA Right! – Calibrating the Extremist Meter
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – A waste of time and money
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Razor – RIP Nelson Mandela

Non-Council Winners

• *First place with 3 votes! – Babalu Blog – Gone is Fidel’s greatest admirer. submitted by Joshuapundit
• Second place *t* with 2 1/3 votes – Victor Davis Hanson/NRO – The World’s New Outlaws submitted by The Noisy Room
• Second place *t* with 2 1/3 votes – Andrew McCarthy/NRO – Impeachment Lessons submitted by Nice Deb
• Third place with 2 votes – Mises Institute – The State Causes the Poverty It Later Claims to Solve submitted by The Political Commentator
• Fourth place with 1 1/3 votes – Alan Johnson – The slaughter and torture of Christians: not a priority for the Government, Labour or DfID submitted by Simply Jews
• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – Ace of Spades – Almost Three Quarters of All US Military Deaths in Afghanistan Have Occurred During The Presidency of Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama submitted by Bookworm Room
• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – The Independent Sentinel – Obama Has Taken To Robbing Banks submitted by The Watcher
• Sixth place with 2/3 vote – Brad DeLong/The Equitablog – Is Growth Getting Harder? If so, Why, and What Can We Do About It?: The Honest Broker for the Week of December 1, 2013 submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – Killer of British soldier Lee Rigby: “I am a soldier and this is war” submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Other McCain – Were Vassar Students Who Perpetrated Hate Hoax Linked to Another Injustice? submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – Daily Beast – Husain Haqqani – Pakistan’s Change of Guard and General Ashfaq Kayani’’s Legacy submitted by The Razor
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – Seymour M. Hersh – Who’s Sarin? submitted by The Right Planet
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – Bill Whittle – I can’t Believe They Let You Do That! submitted by The Watcher

Honorable Mentions

• Ask Marion – RNC Chairman Says Hillary 2016 Candidacy is Set… And Female Presidency Will be the Carrot
• The Pirate’s Cove – Know What’s Perfect For Christmas? Carbon Offsets

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in… don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that!

Nelson Mandela, Giant Among Men, Dies - 1918-2013

By Marion Algier - AskMarion

Nelson Mandela was one of the great leaders of our time. Was he perfect… absolutely not. And when you start digging you can find many flaws as well as connections with Communists and Socialists and that ideology. But when you look at his life in total and his ability to forgive as well as pulling a country filled with hate together, I figure he deserves some kudos and perhaps a little slack. Leadership, especially in the third world is complicated! 

He died, or as they say in South Africa, transitioned today, at age 96, of a lung infection connected to the tuberculosis he contracted while serving 27 years as a political prisoner. All South Africans most people around the world are in deep mourning over the loss.  Mandela  was a larger than life figure that inspired a nation… inspired the world.  His adherence to his principals and his extraordinary decision to embrace and forgive his former oppressors makes him an unparalleled example.

“If you want to make peace with your enemy you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner,” he wrote in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (Audio/Kindle) that was published four years after his release from prison in 1990. Following his jail term, with the racist and violent apartheid system crumbling under pressure from the world, Mandela embraced President F.W. de Klerk and then served alongside him in a transitional coalition of national unity. The two men deservingly both won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

One of Mandela’s other greatest achievements: Instead of prosecuting the crimes of many apartheid-era commanders and enforcers, in 1995 he agreed to set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where victims of racist violence and torture could tell their stories and perpetrators told theirs. The commission granted violent former government officials and employees amnesty in exchange for their honesty about what they did. Though that was controversial and upset some, in the end the process was also hailed as a triumph of mercy and a meaningful step toward healing the country’s deepest wounds.

Mandela was born in 1918, in a rural village in the Cape Province. Apartheid had not yet been completely enshrined as law, but a system of strict, racial segregation was already in place. Mandela’s given name, Rolihlahla turned out to be more than appropriate in the eyes of those in power; in the Khosa language it means “troublemaker.”

AP Photo/David Brauchli/AP Photo/David Brauchli

His father died when he was nine years old, and a Thembu chief raised him. When he was 23, young Mandela left, running away from a marriage the chief had arranged for him in the Transkei. He moved to Johannesburg where he studied law as one of a handful of black students at Witwatersrand University.  That same year he joined the African National Congress, and later he co-founded the ANC’s youth league together with Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu. In 1944, three years after leaving home, he married his first wife, Evelyn Mase with whom he had four children.

In 1948 the National Party came to power and started passing a series of laws enforcing racial segregation, which became known as apartheid. Four years later, Mandela opened the country’s first black law office with Tambo, representing defendants who were oppressed by the system. In 1955 he banded together with South Africans of Indian descent, mixed race South Africans, and trade union representatives to draft the Freedom Charter, calling for the creation of a democratic, non-racial state with the nationalization of major corporations.

The government first prosecuted Mandela in 1956 when it charged him and 155 other activists with treason. After a four-year trial, the authorities dropped the case. In 1958 he divorced his first wife and married social worker Winnie Madikizela. Two years later the government outlawed the ANC and Mandela went underground as the apartheid regime became more and more oppressive. That same year police massacred 69 protesters in the Johannesburg township of Sharpeville.  Though he had initially committed to non-violent protest, in 1961 he co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe (the Spear of the Nation, also known as MK), a group that waged a bombing campaign against government targets.

In 1964 the government again put Mandela on trial. Facing a death sentence, he made a famous, four-hour-long speech that concluded with these moving words that underlined his commitment to non-racialism:

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

He and eight others were convicted of conspiracy, sabotage and treason and sentenced to life in prison. He spent much of it in a tiny cell on Robben Island, a barren, windswept expanse in shark-infested Table Bay, four miles from Cape Town, where he worked in a rock quarry and secretly wrote his memoir, which he hid from guards inside tin cans buried in the prison vegetable patch.

By the 1980s, anti-apartheid activists were publicizing Mandela’s name as the imprisoned leader of the struggle against apartheid and the slogan “Free Nelson Mandela” gained popularity around the world. Inside South Africa the police and military killed and tortured thousands who continued to protest apartheid. Finally, after years of international ridicule and the tightening of economic sanctions that had begun in 1967, on Feb. 2, 1990, de Klerk lifted the ban on the A.N.C. Nine days later Mandela walked free from prison. He delivered these timeless lines at Cape Town City Hall on Feb. 11, 1990:

Friends, comrades and fellow South Africans, I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all. I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.

South Africa held their first all-race democratic election in 1994 and they overwhelmingly chose Mandela. He immediately faced huge problems, including rampant poverty, high unemployment, a vastly unequal education system, rising crime and a call by many South Africans to nationalize businesses and return land to the original black owners. Instead he negotiated a series of compromises that remain controversial. Most multinational corporations stayed, and some black South Africans have amassed significant wealth, but the majority of the population still lives in poverty and confronts one of the highest crime rates in the world and an AIDS crisis, with more than 10% of the population living with the HIV virus.

Mandela, whose son Makgatho died of AIDS in 2005, became a leading spokesman for AIDs prevention and treatment in South Africa, where many people in the black community have seen the illness as taboo.  Mandela spoke out publically after his son died: “Let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died because of HIV/AIDS, and people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary.” Mandela pushed for people with HIV to be given anti-retroviral drugs in South Africa, and spearheaded a campaign to declare a global AIDS emergency, insisting that fighting AIDS was a human rights issue.

Another of Mandela’s many accomplishments was memorialized in the movie Invictus [Blu-ray], a must see if you haven’t. In 1995, when South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup, he encouraged all South Africans to support the national team, the Springboks, who had previously been a symbol of white exclusion.

“Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front.”.  Mandela did not need or seek the credit…

Mandela divorced his sometimes controversial wife Winnie in 1996 and then in 1998, on his 80^th birthday.  He then married Graca Machel, the widow of Mozambican president Samora Machel.

After stepping down from the presidency in 1999, Mandela intended to go into retirement but wound up founding the Nelson Mandela Foundation. The Foundation devots much of its resources to AIDS activism and becoming vocal on international affairs, speaking out against the war in Iraq. Finally in 2004, at age 84 due to his failing health, he stepped back from public life, saying, “Don’t call me, I will call you,” although he kept some involvement in international affairs, urging Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to resign over his many human rights abuses. He also successfully campaigned for South Africa to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Though he kept a low profile during the tournament, he made a rare public appearance during the closing ceremony.

Mandela has been an inspiration to millions of people around the world for the strength of character he showed in the face of one of the world’s most brutal regimes, but even more so it was his enduring power to accept and forgive his former oppressors. One of those he inspired was President Obama, who wrote an introduction to Mandela’s 2010 book, Conversations with Myself (Kindle). Obama Describes the early impact Mandela had on his own life saying, “His sacrifice was so great that it called upon people everywhere to do what they could on behalf of human progress. In the most modest of ways, I was one of those people who tried to answer his call.” Certainly in line with Progressive or Socialistic thought!

Mandela was not one of the Giants whose whole life meets a standard of perfection like Lincoln, Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, Billy Graham… but he was one of those leaders given to mankind throughout the ages to bring about great change at a given time, when they were needed. But many of Mandela’s choices outside of that were questionable and even startling, but out of respect, a subject for another day!

Nelson Mandela was a man who changed the world, unlike most leaders who just talk and pat themselves on the back.  He was one of the few Giants that have been given to mankind throughout the ages. Our daughter, Summer, was lucky enough to meet, take classes from and actually spend some time with Archbishop Desmond TuTu as she sailed from Brazil to South Africa while with Semester at Sea as part of her college career.  The experience of meeting Desmond TuTu, who painted vivid pictures of both his country and Nelson Mandela as he spoke was one of the highlights of her sail!

Nelson Mandela’s 8 Lessons of Leadership

Courage is not the absence of fear — it's inspiring others to move beyond it…

"I can't pretend that I'm brave and that I can beat the whole world." But as a leader, you cannot let people know. "You must put up a front." He knew that he was a model for others, and that gave him the strength to triumph over his own fear. … Nelson Mandela

1. Lead from the front — but don't leave your base behind
   For Mandela, refusing to negotiate was about tactics, not principles. Throughout his life, he has always made that distinction. His unwavering principle — the overthrow of apartheid and the achievement of one man, one vote — was immutable, but almost anything that helped him get to that goal he regarded as a tactic. He is the most pragmatic of idealists.
2. Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front
   Mandela loved to reminisce about his boyhood and his lazy afternoons herding cattle. "You know," he would say, "you can only lead them from behind." He would then raise his eyebrows to make sure I got the analogy. The trick of leadership is allowing yourself to be led too. "It is wise," he said, "to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea."
3. Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport
   As far back as the 1960s, Mandela began studying Afrikaans, the language of the white South Africans who created apartheid. His comrades in the ANC teased him about it, but he wanted to understand the Afrikaner's worldview; he knew that one day he would be fighting them or negotiating with them, and either way, his destiny was tied to theirs. He even brushed up on his knowledge of rugby, the Afrikaners' beloved sport, so he would be able to compare notes on teams and players.
4. Keep your friends close — and your rivals even closer
   Mandela is a man of invincible charm — and he has often used that charm to even greater effect on his rivals than on his allies. He cherished loyalty, but he was never obsessed by it. After all, he used to say, "people act in their own interest." It was simply a fact of human nature, not a flaw or a defect. The flip side of being an optimist — and he is one — is trusting people too much. But Mandela recognized that the way to deal with those he didn't trust was to neutralize them with charm.
5. Appearances matter — and remember to smile
   When Mandela was running for the presidency in 1994, he knew that symbols mattered as much as substance. He was never a great public speaker, and people often tuned out what he was saying after the first few minutes. But more important was that dazzling, beatific, all-inclusive smile. For white South Africans, the smile symbolized Mandela's lack of bitterness and suggested that he was sympathetic to them. To black voters, it said, I am the happy warrior, and we will triumph.
6. Nothing is black or white
   Mandela is comfortable with contradiction. As a politician, he was a pragmatist who saw the world as infinitely nuanced. Every problem has many causes. Mandela's calculus was always, What is the end that I seek, and what is the most practical way to get there?
7. Quitting is leading too
   Knowing how to abandon a failed idea, task or relationship is often the most difficult kind of decision a leader has to make. He knows that leaders lead as much by what they choose not to do as what they do.

May you rest in peace!

Video: Limbaugh Admires Mandela’s Lack Of ‘Resentment’

Video: RUSH: Obama Makes Mandela’s Death All About Obama

RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, you can’t escape the media and what’s going on here, and it’s all very predictable. If you just landed from Mars and turned on the TV, you may be confused over who was Barack Obama and who was Nelson Mandela, based on the way it’s being covered. Well, I’m just telling you. The Washington press corps and even the White House are moving here at full speed to associate Barack Obama with Nelson Mandela. Here, grab number three. This just gives you a taste of it here. This is Scott Pelley on the CBS Evening News last night reporting on the death of Nelson Mandela.

PELLEY: Nelson Mandela kept in his office a photograph of himself with another trail-blazing president: The first black president of the United States, Barack Obama. The photograph was taken when Mandela visited Washington in 2005, and Mr. Obama was then a brand-new United States senator from Illinois.

RUSH: Now, forgive me, but if you are a low-information voter and you’re watching the CBS Evening News last night, you would come away with the impression that the important thing about Nelson Mandela’s death was that he had looked up Barack Obama when he came to town and had a picture of Obama when he died. Classic, folks. Absolutely classic — and the rest of the media, it’s so predictable.

Read More @ RushLimbaugh.com

Media Blackout Out on Obama Eligibility Near-Total as INS Dos Found: U.S. Certificate Issued to One East African-Born Child of U.S. Citizen In 1961!

WND:  Even though almost half of registered voters tell pollsters they are not convinced Barack Obama’s birth certificate is authentic – and even though the first official U.S. law enforcement investigation into the matter established “probable cause” that the document released with great fanfare by the White House last April is a computer-generated forgery – a virtual media blackout remains in effect on the most controversial story of the Obama presidency.

Even when one of several bombshell findings of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s six-month investigation into Obama’s constitutional eligibility was rated last week by Internet ranking service Alexa.com as one of the most-read news stories in the entire world – due almost entirely to coverage by WND and the Drudge Report – not only the establishment press, but most of the “conservative” media as well, looked the other way. For example:

• Shortly after Arpaio’s March 1 press conference, a popular column discussing Obama’s eligibility to serve as president was published on Townhall.com – which bills itself as the “leading conservative and political opinion website” – but then, the column inexplicably disappeared from the site.

Titled “Sheriff Joe Exposes Forgery of Obama’s Selective Service Registration,” by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown of the Western Center For Journalism, it had been Townhall’s eighth-most-read and most-emailed column that day. Then suddenly it was gone – and WND’s requests for comment failed to elicit any explanation from Townhall.

• Then last week, another regular Townhall columnist, Diana West, wrote “Why the Silence About Obama’s Historic Scam?” but found that it wasn’t posted on Townhall at all. Worse, it was déjà vu for West, whose previous column on the same topic likewise was also spiked.

When WND asked West why her last two columns on the subject of Obama’s eligibility weren’t posted on Townhall, she responded: “This week’s empty hole where my column on media silence on Sheriff Arpaio’s press conference would normally go, like last month’s empty hole where my column on the Atlanta court proceeding on eligibility would normally go, speak for themselves.”

West’s column cited the “hard, sharp facts that might poke through my discussion of what is surely the biggest scandal to emerge around the seemingly dodgy docs Barack Obama is using to verify his identity.”

She also noted the “logic- and history-defying news and political blackout of the March 1 press conference called in Maricopa County, Ariz., by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse.”

West’s challenge to readers was simple: “I ask you: Have you read in your local paper about the technical evidence that led the posse’s three retired criminal investigators and two attorneys to conclude that the birth certificate image White House officials uploaded at the White House website on April 27, 2011, did not originate in a paper format, but rather was created (forged) as an electronic file on a computer?

“Have you seen on network or cable news the video clip (one of six posse videos at YouTube) re-creating exactly how an additional fraud might have been committed to forge the president’s Selective Service registration card? Heard even conservative talk radio discussing the posse’s discovery that immigration files in the National Archives recording overseas arrivals into Hawaii are missing from the week of Obama’s 1961 birthday? Or about the retired mailman’s affidavit attesting that the mother of ex-Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers enthusiastically told him that she helped with “foreign student” Barack Obama’s education?”

West also found it highly revealing that, while “watching the posse’s press conference online, I heard lead investigator Michael Zullo explain that the 1961 Hawaiian newspaper listings of Barack Obama’s birth confirm nothing because the posse ‘can prove beyond a doubt’ that these newspapers announced arrivals of foreign babies as well as native-born. Zullo also announced the posse had ‘documented evidence of two adopted individuals who were breathing three years prior’ and were similarly listed as newborn infants. Heard anything about that?”

• Last week, a top Breitbart.com editor said he believed “there’s no evidence” to support allegations questioning Obama’s eligibility as president, adding, “It’s a waste of resources, and it’s a waste of time.”

What about Fox News?

• When it was announced that talk radio powerhouse “Mancow” Muller would be featured in two one-hour Fox TV specials called “Mancow TV Worldwide,” the radio host specifically requested that WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi be his first guest. Corsi, a two-time No. 1 New York Times bestselling author and Harvard Ph.D., was set to discuss Iran and Israel, as well as globalism.

When Fox was setting up the time for Corsi to be interviewed on Muller’s debut show, he was specifically prohibited by the show’s producers from discussing anything to do with the constitutional eligibility questions still plaguing Obama.

Corsi has been the nation’s leading investigative journalist on the Obama eligibility issue and is the author of the New York Times bestseller Where's the Birth Certificate? As such, he played a central role in introducing the issue to Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The sheriff’s investigative team recently completed the first phase of an ongoing law-enforcement investigation into the many vexing and totally unvetted issues of Obama’s past that bear directly on the legality of his serving as president.

Corsi agreed to the restrictions on the Mancow interview, and the Fox segment was taped and scheduled for broadcast.

But then, Corsi’s publicist received a call from the show’s producer saying network executives had viewed the segment and determined that it “didn’t fit,” and thus would be scrubbed.

“It’s clear censorship at Fox,” according to Corsi, who says it’s apparent the network didn’t want an appearance by anyone even linked to the Obama investigation, and claims it confirms the various reports that the mainstream media are censoring reports on Obama’s eligibility.

“Fox does not want to cover the Obama eligibility issue,” he said. “It’s a clear indication Fox is moving to the left. [Owner Rupert] Murdoch must be under increasing political pressure …”

Corsi added, “This confirms stories we’ve been gathering about the threats (against reporting on Obama’s eligibility),” he said. “In fact, it’s reaching such a level of censorship that it’s of interest to the sheriff’s posse.”

He was referring to the “Cold Case Posse” of law-enforcement professionals and attorneys assembled by Arpaio, who announced the results of their six-month investigation on March 1.

Arpaio’s investigation continues, but at the news conference announcing the initial results, lead investigator Mike Zullo stated, ominously: “During our investigation, we actually were told [that media] had been threatened with FTC investigations [if they continued reporting on eligibility]. Commentators [had been] threatened with their jobs.”

The threats were so intimidating that some individuals quit their positions over safety concerns for their families, Zullo confirmed.

Before the White House’s April 27, 2011, release of the purported Obama birth certificate, Fox did provide some coverage – spurred on by both Donald Trump’s bold, public questioning of the birth certificate, as well as the then-imminent release of Corsi’s “Where’s the Birth Certificate” which shot to No. 1 on the Amazon bestseller list a full month before release. But ever since Obama released his document – judged by virtually every expert who has rendered an opinion to be a forgery – Fox, like other major cable and broadcast networks, hasn’t touched the issue.

The irony is that Trump, a key instigator of the original coverage, now says Obama’s vaunted birth certificate is likely a forgery, and is strongly encouraging Arpaio’s investigation.

Likewise, as the Daily Caller reported last week in a story headlined “Lord Monckton: ‘I’m no birther,’ but Obama birth certificate ‘plainly a forgery,’” Lord Christopher Monckton, the former policy adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said of Obama: “[W]hat he has done on the White House website is he has put up a document which he is plainly a forgery and I would regard that as a very serious matter.”

Because of the media blackout on reporting the results of the Arpaio team’s six-month investigation, Zullo eventually agreed to an ebook project to allow the evidence assembled by the professional investigators to reach the eyes of the public.

NOTE: In case you missed the news conference of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse,” you can view it here.

And here, in case you missed it, is an excerpt of the viral interview with retired postman Allen Hulton who testifies that the family of unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers funded “foreign student” Barack Obama through Harvard Law School:  What the Mailman Knows about Ayers and Obama

INS DOC FOUND: U.S. CERTIFICATE ISSUED TO ONE EAST AFRICAN-BORN CHILD OF U.S. CITIZEN IN 1961!

From Conception...To Election

"Preventing an individual with plural loyalties, whether by biological, political or geographic origins, which may present lawful or perceptible doubt as to his allegiances thereof, other than one with the full most sovereignty of advanced citizenry, which is that of one who remains Natural-born from conception to election, from assuming the great power of this fragile office, was, without tolerance or vulnerability, the exaction of purpose of our fathers to induce the mandate of presidential eligibility upon our blood-ransomed Constitution..." Pen Johannson 

Friday, March 23, 2012  -  By Dan Crosby – of  The Daily Pen

INS DOC FOUND: U.S. CERTIFICATE ISSUED TO ONE EAST AFRICAN-BORN CHILD OF U.S. CITIZEN IN 1961!

IMPLICATIVE DISCOVERY: A government document found buried in the online reference section of a Boston Public Library archive bolsters a growing mountain of evidentiary data against Barack Obama’s constitutional eligibility to be president. The document indicates that a consular officer issued a single certificate of statutory citizenship, within the time frame including August 4, 1961, to a child born to a U.S. citizen between July 1st and December 31st, 1961 in the Kenyan region of Africa. The record also reveals that the certificate was the only one issued for this specific type of arrival in the U.S. over a span of more than 18 months, among thousands from other parts of the world.

NEW YORK, NY – A recently discovered rare immigration record found by researchers working on behalf of an ongoing investigation into the Constitutional eligibility of Barack Obama to hold the office of the U.S. presidency reveals that an American consular officer issued a single Certificate of Citizenship to only one passenger arriving in the U.S. from the Kenyan region of Africa between July and December of 1961.

The record shows demographic and status classifications for a passenger who was explicitly recorded at the INS Arrival Inspection Station as an individual being born to a U.S. citizen parent arriving from the Kenyan region of Africa between July 1st and December 31st, 1961.

This information and the dates of its documentation are disturbing given the rare nature of the issuance of certificates of citizenship for children who acquire their citizenship by birth to incoming U.S. citizens in this particular region of Africa.

Sample of a U.S. Certificate of Citizenship

These dates not only align with the alleged date of Obama’s birth on August 4, 1961, but also with evidence indicating that Ann Dunham departed from Hawaii beginning in February, 1961, shortly after her undocumented marriage to Obama Sr.

Also supported by this data is the implication of an African trip by the absence of Dunham’s passport information which is known to have existed from the 1960s which was used in at least one occasion for her departure with Obama Jr. to Indonesia where the two lived with Lolo Soetoro, Dunham’s second husband. If Dunham had filed for a “renewal” of an old passport, rather than for a new passport in the mid 1960’s for the Indonesian trip, which would have been the common practice for the life of a passport, this would have been indicated on the missing application which would have been included with the series of documents released by an FOIA request in early 2010.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service published its annual Report of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1963, for the year of July 1st, 1961 ending on June 30th, 1962. According to information on page 99 of the report the only certificate of acquired citizenry issued based on the grounds of birth to a U.S. citizen abroad was coincidentally also issued in the same time frame during which Barack Obama’s alleged birth date occurred on August 4th, 1961.

http://archive.org/stream/annualreportofim1962unit#page/99/mode/1up
According to the INS, Certificates of Citizenship are issued upon arrival in the U.S. to those who have acquired statutory citizenship (not natural-born citizenship) by birth to at least one U.S. citizen parent within the previous year while that parent(s) was temporarily in another country. COC are notifications provided by the American Consulate Service, via the INS, to individuals born to at least one U.S. citizen abroad in order to provide interim citizen alien status while immigration status is processed and secured. COC are not issued to natural-born citizens or children born to non-U.S. citizen parents arriving in the U.S., nor are COC received through the same process as required for naturalized citizenship, according to the INS.

 

http://archive.org/stream/annualreportofim1962unit#page/14/mode/1up
 A COAC is issued to an arriving child from abroad who is:
- born abroad to one U.S. citizen parent and one parent with “alien” non-citizen status, or
- born in the U.S. to two alien parents who both naturalize after the child’s birth, or
- born abroad to a U.S. citizen who did not live in (or come to) the United States for a period of time prior to the child’s birth, or
- adopted and is permanently residing in the United States and can become a U.S. citizen by action of law on the date on which all of the following requirements have been met:
- The child was lawfully admitted for permanent residence; and
- Either parent was a United States citizen by birth or naturalization; and
- The child was still under 18 years of age; and
- The child was not married; and
- The child was the parent’s legitimate child or was legitimated by the parent before the child’s 16th birthday (Stepchildren or children born out of wedlock who were not legitimated before their 16th birthday do not derive United States citizenship through their parents.); and
- If adopted, the child met the requirements of section 101(b)(1)(E) or (F) and has had a full and final adoption; and
- The child was residing in the United States in the legal custody of the U.S. citizen parent (this includes joint custody)

As previously reported by Dr. Jerome Corsi of WND and other sources, the void of documented and testimonial evidence accounting for Ann Dunham’s presence in Hawaii between February and early August of 1961 implies that she had reasons to travel to Kenya shortly after her undocumented marriage to Obama’s alleged father in February of 1961. According to the widely accepted but highly suspicious uncorroborated account of events, Dunham would have been at least three months pregnant at the time of the marriage. The only evidence accounting for Dunham’s presence after August 1961 is a transcript of registration to attend fall extension classes at the University of Washington, in Seattle, beginning in late August, 1961.

The previous year’s INS report shows that no other Certificates of Derived Citizenry by birth were issued to anyone arriving from the Kenyan region of Africa between July 1st, 1960 and June 30th, 1961. During this time, the INS recorded 282 alien arrivals from Kenya by air, and three U.S. citizens.

The arrival of these Kenyan aliens is corroborated by the African American Students Foundation Report of Activities 1959-1961 which documents the arrival of the same number of students in the U.S. on September 7, 1960 from Nairobi, Kenya via the second sortie of the Airlift America Project, a project initiated in April 1959 by the AASF and former Kenyan Prime Minister, Tom Mboya, to bring African students from Nairobi to study in the U.S.

Of the 2397 arrivals from Africa who were originally classified by the INS as “Aliens” between July 1, 1961 and June 30, 1962, only one was from Kenya. INS procedures dictate that arrivals under the age of 18 not possessing a U.S. passport are issued “alien” status until the alleged parents of the child are officially issued a Certificate of Citizenry. The Certificate of Citizenry can then be used in conjunction with state birth registration procedures to acquire a birth certificate for the child.

A COC is also considered a primary form of identification by the State of Hawaii in 1961 to prove a foreign born infant’s residency in the U.S. prompting the issuance of a standard Certificate of Live Birth under Hawaii Revised Statute 338-17 which would then allocate the location of the birth to the mother’s residence.

Corroborating data from passenger arrivals of flights entering the U.S. between July 1st, 1961 and June 30th, 1962 indicates this one individual may have been originally classified as an alien upon arrival prior to application for derivative citizenship. The INS report shows there was only one individual who was originally classified by the INS as an alien arriving by air from Kenya. This individual was possibly inspected by INS officers in Hawaii upon arrival at the INS station located within Honolulu International Airport sometime in early August of 1961.

Unfortunately, the report does not give data supporting that this individual was accompanied by a U.S. citizen parent. This may be explained by the disparity of time between being classified as an “alien” in the interim until a COAC was granted and the collection of data for this report’s date of publication.

According to the INS report data, a voluntary birth to a U.S. resident in Africa in 1961, away from the quality of care offered at U.S. hospitals was extremely rare with only eight such cases in more than two years. The rarity of this event would leave an easily referenced recording of the birth abroad. Hawaiian law also specifies that documentation used to issue birth certificates by the Hawaiian Health Department includes certificates of citizenship issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service upon arrival of children born to U.S. citizens abroad.

Posted by Penbrook One at 5:27 PM

Related:

Help Sheriff Joe blow the lid off Obama’s fraud. Join the Cold Case Posse right now!

Obama’s Radical Friends…

What the Mailman Knows about Ayers and Obama

Impeach Obama Banner at Rally for Religious Freedom - San Diego

KONY 2012: OBAMA MAKES GEORGE SOROS RICHER

The KONY 2012 scam has been revealed and now it is time to look at Obama’s motivation to use American blood and treasure to wage war in Uganda even though Kony has not been seen for six years, is believed to be dead and American interests do not warrant this war.

Follow the money. Where George Soros invests, U.S. taxpayer dollars follow.

UGANDA:

Recall that we recently learned U.S. taxpayer dollars were spent on the writing of Africa’s new Constitution. The obvious question is “Why”? In October 2011, WND’s Aaron Klein provided the answer [emphasis added]:

Also in 2008, the Africa Institute for Energy Governance, a grantee of the Soros-funded Revenue Watch, helped established [sic] the Publish What You Pay Coalition of Uganda, or PWYP, which was purportedly launched to coordinate and streamline the efforts of the government in promoting transparency and accountability in the oil sector.

Also, a steering committee was formed for PWYP Uganda to develop an agenda for implementing the oil advocacy initiatives and a constitution to guide PWYP’s oil work…

PWYP is directly funded by Soros’ Open Society as well as the the Soros-funded Revenue Watch Institute. PWYP international is actually hosted by the Open Society Foundation in London.

The billionaire’s Open Society Institute, meanwhile, runs numerous offices in Uganda. It maintains a country manager in Uganda, as well as the Open Society Initiative for East Africa, which supports work in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Soros will make millions – if not billions – off of Uganda’s oil industry and his other interests there.

BRAZIL:

Remember when we were perplexed that Obama’s 2009 stimulus plan (which is refunded each and every year) includes $2 billion per year for Brazil’s oil industry? We later learned that Soros was invested in Brazil’s oil industry prior to Obama’s 2009 infusion of $2 billion.

Public uproar caused Soros to liquidate those investments, but after the publicity died down, Soros went right back in and reinvested. Despite ‘paper’ losses in 2011, it appears Soros is staying in for the long-term gain.

Given that Soros has been a White House visitor since Obama’s election, do you think insider information, collusion and corruption may be in play?

CONCLUSION:

Does Obama work for George Soros or for the American people? While only two oil connections are presented here, there are many other examples of Obama’s use of American assets to aide and abet Soros’ interests, investments and agenda – as well as Obama’s support to other anti-American subversives.

Will Congress investigate and hold Obama accountable? Not likely.

Without doubt, Soros’ financial interests are being directly supported by Obama at the expense of American blood and treasure.

Imagine what Obama would do during a second term when he is unrestrained. Inform others so that they may consider who Obama really serves (and the lies he tells on the campaign trail) before casting their vote in November.

Clearly Obama works for Soros and does whatever is necessary to make Soros richer and more powerful at America’s expense.

By AJ  - Cross-Posted at the Noisy Room and Knowledge Creates Power and added as update at AskMarion 

Here's the link to the financials for the Invisible Children group (2008/2009).  Shows their huge 'take' on what they raise.  On page 7, out of nearly $9 million, less than $3 million went to direct support - that's less than 34%.  They kept/used more than 66% for themselves.

Michelle Obama Listed Daughters Malia and Sasha as “Senior Staffers” for $432,142 African Trip

Does it ever stop???

Michelle Obama listed daughters Malia and Sasha as “senior staffers” to justify her $432,142 getaway to Africa.

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama stands with Karen Dudley, right, at her restaurant “The Kitchen” as she makes an unscheduled stop for lunch in Cape Town, South Africa, Thursday, June 23, 2011. Also pictured, left to right, daughters Malia and Sasha Obama, niece Leslie Robinson, nephew Avery Robinson. (AP/Charles Dharapak, Pool)

Washington Whispers reported on the African trip.

First lady Michelle Obama’s family trip to South Africa and Botswana in June cost taxpayers well over $424,000, according to new accounting based on Air Force manifests obtained by Judicial Watch, a taxpayer watchdog group.

The use of Air Force aircraft alone for the June 21-27 trip cost $424,142, said the group, and that doesn’t include the food, lodging, and ground transportation for the 21 family and staff members.

The daughters were listed as senior staff.

Defend this fraud, liberal media. We’re waiting.

Source:  Gateway Pundit - Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, October 4, 2011, 3:23 PM

Related:

So How Much Did Michelle Obama’s Summer Trip to Africa Cost?

Barrack Obama's Questionable Birth Certificate... Is He Really Visiting His Sick Granny or Taking A Few Days to Produce Another Altered Document??

Below is a photo of the Certification of Live Birth produced by the Obama campaign in 2007 when the issue of Barrack's birth and qualification to run for president first arose.

However, the 2007 document produced by the Obama campaign omits key information that normally appears on birth certificates in the United States, including the name of the hospital where he was born, the size and weight of the baby, and sometimes the name of the doctor who delivered him.

In addition, the critics of the 2007 document note that Obama's father is described as “African,” a term used today. The formal language in official documents at the time — 1961 — would have identified his race as “Negro” or “Colored.”

Also if you notice at the bottom this form, it was revised in November 2001 and issued in 2007, so there is a lot of room for question and changes.

 

For a better look: [See the Certification of Live Birth — Click Here.]

The Constitution provides that any U.S. citizen is eligible to become president if the person is 35 years of age or older and is a natural-born citizen; that is, born in the territorial United States. (which includes military bases, embassies, and a few other such exceptions that are considered 'American soil'.

By failing to respond to the Request for Admissions and Request for the Production of Documents within 30 days, Obama has “admitted” that he was born in Kenya, Berg stated this week in new court filings.

By not filing the answers or objections, the defense has admitted everything. [Obama] admits he was born in Kenya. He admits he was adopted in Indonesia.He admits that the documentation posted online is a phony. And he admits that he is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president of the United States.”

Obama knows the law and this was too important just to forget!!

The lawsuit, filed by former Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General Philip J. Berg — a self-avowed supporter of Hillary Clinton — alleges that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is thus “ineligible” to run for president of the United States.It demands that Obama’s lawyers produce a copy of his original birth certificate to prove that he is a natural-born U.S. citizen.

The Web site snarkybytes.com has produced a 'vault copy' of a Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth from 1963, issued by the Hawaii Department of Health.  In addition to naming the hospital and more details about the baby, the supposed 1963 vault copy also includes the “usual residence of the mother,” and the “usual occupation” of the father. None of this information appears on the 2007 Live Birth certificate produced by the Obama campaign???  

And then we get to the point that Obama's Kenyan grandmother said she was present at the birth in Kenya.

According to FactCheck.org...

“When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu (or maybe not), Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.

Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4,1982.”

This sounds to me like Obama either held dual British Citizenship or Kenyan Citizenship and U.S. Citizenship, but if he was born on Africa, he is unqualified to be president of the United States... and he knows it.

And now there is supposedly also another birth certificate floating around that states that Obama's father was only 15% African and 85% an Arab-Muslim, which again substantiates that Barack was at least a Muslim by birth, and we know that he attended Muslim schools.

One thing I've learned in my life is... when there are this many questions and irregularities... there is a problem.  As the saying goes, "Where there is smoke there is fire."

Perhaps there is more to this trip to Hawaii to see his ailing grandmother??  If he comes up with a newly altered birth certificate when he returns... I'd say there is a problem!?!?!

In addition to Pennsylvania, the latest lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts in Hawaii, Washington, California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and Connecticut to compel Obama to release his birth records.

Ironically, Obama mentions his birth certificate in passing on Page 26 of his 1995 memoir, “Dreams of My Father.” “I discovered this article, folded away among my birth certificate and old vaccination forms, when I was in high school,” he wrote.

Lawyers for Obama and the DNC did not return calls for comment on the current status of the case, or explain why the Obama campaign did not simply put to rest the whole controversy by releasing the birth certificate that 'Obama apparently cherished as a teenager'.  Perhaps it is because it shows that he was born in Africa?

Obama's Secrecy and Deceit

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)