The claim is not that Obama was helped by affirmative action. That is something that I think few would suggest is impossible, or, for that matter, unreasonable. The claim that is being made is that all Obama's academic achievements came about because of affirmative action. That they were entirely unearned. That he never would have been able to get in at all without affirmative action. It's meant to accompany the claims that the President cannot speak without a teleprompter; that he did not write - could not possibly have written - his books.

It is part of a set of claims that is designed to provide affirmation, confirmation, and validation to the assorted bigots and out-and-out racists that make up a substantial fraction of the Republican Party's base.

So how did [Bill Kristol] end up with such a sweet gig? (Especially given that the Times already employed an incomparably more talented conservative columnist in the person of David Brooks.)

The answer goes back to Farley’s observation about the extreme nepotism of the contemporary right-wing media machine. Kristol may be an utter mediocrity, but he’s an extraordinarily well-connected utter mediocrity. (Indeed, as this column went to press it was announced that the Washington Post Writers Group had hired Kristol.)

Which brings me to this charming vignette, courtesy of blog commenter Harry Hopkins:

“I remember back in the late 1990s, when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture. Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol during the first Bush administration.

“The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC [Republican National Committee] and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government.

“With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. I oppose it,’ Irving replied. It subverts meritocracy.’“

Yeah. Well, Larry said that about me, too.

Note the author of that thing is Jon Roland.

Jon Roland was CEL3's friend. He does all that Sovereign Citizen stuff.

Here's a sample.

http://victimsoflaw.net/TX_LincolnTrials.htm

Toll sez they became enemies some time ago.

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1897&p=76333&hilit=ROLAND#p76333

Who knows as of today?

Anyway, he's been doing pseudo law for a long time.

First, one has to examine the image originally put up on the Whitehouse website, which was changed a few days later.

Second, the effect one can observe is not the same as the layers cited by debunkers. I used several image analysis tools, including some more advanced than Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. The layers of interest for this discussion are not the kind that are artifacts of PDF encoding. These tools reveal pieces of images from obviously different sources assembled as a collage.

Even if the image were of one document and not pieced together from several, that document contains some obvious defects that prove it could not have been an authentic certificate. It’s a forgery.

I use a combination of Linux tools:
Gnu Image Manpulation Program (GIMP)
Blender
Inkscape
ImageMagick
REX (from Imagtek)
Xcap (from Epix)
Others custom-written, mostly without names

The statement by a Hawaii official, combined with an image that can withstand close scrutiny, would normally be sufficient. The problem is that there is other evidence that raises the level of rational doubt, requiring a stricter level of scrutiny: The resistance and delays, the lack or falsity of other credentials, and the inauthenticity of the image, which also contains historical anachronisms indicating it was fabricated by someone not familiar with the context of that date.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and this case is anything but ordinary.

On the subject of the law of nations, that is a branch of law well known to the Framers, discussed by such writers as Grotius, Burlamaqui, Puffendorf, and others besides Blackstone, Coke, and Vattel. We have their principal works online at constitution dot org

Delays? Well, if I were asked to produce things like birth certificate, college diploma and transcript, DD 214 (military record), or other such things, all I have to do is walk over to the file cabinet and pull them out. If I lost those copies, I can replace all of them for small fees in about a week. No one would need to sue me to get me to produce them, and I would not spend a dime to resist producing them. That anyone would is so highly suspicious that at this point I would demand sworn testimony by an eyewitness to the birth, not just some official record, which can be altered or substituted. I have been involved in many cases where someone went in and substituted false records for real ones. In these high profile cases you can’t trust any official documentation like that, or for that matter, most officials.

There was a time when most officials and their documents could be trusted, but that time is long gone. They are all Minitrue agencies now.

“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” — Orwell.

I am familiar with the CRS report, but the CRS is not authoritative, as anyone knows who has worked with it, as I did for two years. They are composed of a lot of second-rate researchers with a weak knowledge of law and history, with their own political agendas, despite their position of being the staffers that actually draft most legislation for Congress. One of the reasons lobbyists have so much influence is because they generally have better lawyers who do a better job of drafting legislation. I used to be one of those lobbyists. Members would turn to me for help from frustration with the politicization and poor quality of work by the CRS.

In fairness, many judges and lawyers get it wrong, too. Hopefully, Supreme Court justices have better law clerks than what one finds in the CRS.

There are two kinds of U.S. territory: incorporated and unincorporated. Only incorporated territory is U.S. soil for purposes of eligibility to serve as president. A statute cannot make one “natural born” unless it incorporates territory, such as a boundary or acquisition treaty, or admission of a state, might do. Any statute that declares people citizens without incorporating their soil as U.S. soil is a naturalization statute, and such persons are naturalized, not natural born, even if they are naturalized retroactively from birth.

You are a mathematician so you should understand probabilities. Let's examine two scenarios and you tell me which one is more probable:

Scenario 1:

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. The was never any credible evidence presented that he was born anywhere else. He released a copy of his COLB in 2008. (No major party candidate had ever taken such a step). The COLB is the current birth record of the state of Hawaii and by the Full Faith and Credit clause in the Constitution would be accepted for proof of birth for any legal purpose including obtaining a passport. It was examined and photographed by FactCheck a non profit independent group and declared to be a valid birth certificate. The state of Hawaii issued several public statements attesting to its authenticity. Lots of other evidence exists such as newspaper announcements, personal accounts of one of his teachers who knew his mother and met the head of Obstetrics a the hospital the same day as his mother gave birth and discussed it, State department records indicate in the mid 60s when his mother and the child emigrated back into the US an investigation was done to verify the child had been born in Hawaii and that was verified. Despite this mountain of evidence President Obama in 2011 released a copy of his LFBC that was obtained via a special dispensation from the state of Hawaii. Two certified copies were made by scanning the top portion of the document in the bound volume and then printed on green security paper. The two copies were stamped with the embossed seal and with the signature of Alvin T. Onaka, one of the most respected registrar in all the 50 states. The copies were viewed and handled by reporters. Savannah Guthrie of MSNBC photographed it with her cell phone camera. AP produced a high resolution black and white JPG of one copy. The White House produced a color scan PDF image using an optimize function to reduce the size of the PDF image. This optimization is known to produce layers as part of the process. The file is posted on the WhiteHouse.gov web site. Hawaii provided a letter posted on their own web site that the LFBC is authentic.

Scenario 2:

Someone constructed the LFBC pdf image using ? software. The image layers are constructed in a completely illogical way that no normal human would choose to do (but a blind optimization engine could possibly do). Officials in Hawaii from two administrations are part of the conspiracy. Who knows how many people have to be in on it. Someone forged the COLB. It was such a good forgery it fooled Factcheck. So far no explanation can be found for the newspaper accounts, the State Department investigation, the account by Obama's teacher, and how Barack Obama was able to function as an ordinary citizen, get passports, drivers licenses, register for selective service, register for social security, and attend three universities all on forged documents however, we shall assume that he somehow carried that off. Even though thousands of people have to be in on the conspiracy not one credible witness has come forward to break the wall of silence with proof as to how this was all done. Not one suspect for any of these misdeeds has been located.

Now you as a mathematician tell me which scenario is more probable? What is your estimate of the probabilities of each being true? Your technique of analyzing one electronic file, out of context, and pronouncing that with 99.9% certainty it is fraudulent shows me that you are not motivated as one seeking scientific truth. You most likely have a political axe to grind.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and this case is anything but ordinary.

I'm just scratching my head at some of those tools Roland claims to be using. I mean, Blender, a 3D computer graphics software, what on earth is he using that for?

Thought I'd state the obvious: Things in Birtherstan are pretty slow....

It's too bad stupidity isn't inherentlyalways immediately fatal.

Not so. The ATLAH Trust But Verify Commission will (according to this video) began its Birth Certificate Forgery Trial tomorrow, May 14, 2012. There is still time to register to be a member of the Trust But Verify Commission.

...it is sweeps week, and it is all reruns.

This is when they toss a bit of sex into the mix. Hence O'rly and the uniboob dress.

Where I'm from, Zeke, that's NOT sex!

Yeah but whenever I was in your town I've never heard of anyone playing Dueling Banjos. Unlike a few nearby towns.

Can we say Hopewell, boys and girls? Or Scotts Mills?