Falsehoods unchallenged only fester and grow.


All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 22 posts ]     
Author Message
PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 6:16 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:01 am
Posts: 18588
Location: Planet Earth (most the time)
Occupation: I'm not at liberty to say. In other words, I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/h ... nd_to.html

There are embedded links that I did not copy over. Also, I did not copy over the chain email. Or, some of the formatting. Go to the site.

Quote:
[...]This chain e-mail is a transparent April Fools' Day hoax. It fabricates an AP news story about an nonexistent group, and makes false claims about Obama and the Fulbright program.


The claim is that Obama received a Fulbright scholarship for foreign students, proving that he is not a U.S. citizen and therefore not eligible to be president. Supposedly this was reported by The Associated Press. But the claim is false and the story is a hoax.

[center]April Fake[/center]
We contacted The Associated Press just to confirm what should be obvious, that no such news story ever appeared on the news agency's wires. Jack Stokes, the AP's manager of media relations, gave us this statement:
Quote:
AP: The story purported to be from The Associated Press on April 1 is fake.

Furthermore, the group that the fake story credits with gaining release of the supposed "smoking gun" documents is also a fake. Searches of news accounts and Internet sites showed no trace of any group called "Americans for Freedom of Information," until recently. On May 6 such a group did appear, but only as a joke to make fun of anyone who had fallen for the April Fools' Day gag. An anonymous blogger set up a site calling itself "Americans for Freedom of Information: We Do Not Exist." Its first entry begins:
Quote:
"Americans for Freedom of Information" May 6: We are the Americans for Freedom of Information. We are a fictitious group of individuals; i.e. we do not exist. And yet, for a nonexistent organization we wield great power and knowledge! O Yea, Verily. OK, actually, not verily at all. Anti-verily, as a matter of an utter lack of fact.


[center]Where Truth Ends[/center]

Not all versions of this e-mail carry the telltale April 1 dateline, however. And more than a month after it first appeared we continue to get questions about whether it is true, and to see postings on conservative blogs that seem to accept its claims as fact. But not only is the message a hoax, its key claims are as false as they can be.

Among the few claims that are true in this message is that from fall 1979 through spring 1981 Obama attended Occidental College, a small (currently 1,825 students, according to its Web site) school in Los Angeles. After that he transferred to Columbia University in New York City to finish his undergraduate education. The photo here is from his application to Occidental.

It's also true that Obama was on scholarship while at Occidental, according to articles in the Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe.

But that's about where the truth ends. For those who might believe that even a fake news story quoting a nonexistent organization might still have some validity, we offer these facts:
No Fulbright: Contrary to what this e-mail claims, Obama's scholarship wasn't a Fulbright. It's true that many foreign students come to the U.S. under the Fulbright program, sponsored by the United States Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. But Fulbrights for foreign students are primarily intended for graduate students studying for masters' degrees or Ph.D. degrees, not for college freshmen and sophomores.

No "Soetoro": Another false claim is that Obama attended and received financial aid "under the name Barry Soetoro," using the surname of his Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetoro. The college's Director of Communications Jim Tranquada told us there's no record of that. He told us in an e-mail:
Quote:
Occidental spokesman Tranquada: Contemporary public documents, such as the 1979-80 freshman 'Lookbook' published at the beginning of President Obama's first year at Occidental, list him as Barack Obama. All of the Occidental alumni I have spoken to from that era (1979-81) who knew him, knew him as Barry Obama.

No Records: It's not even true that Occidental has released Obama's student records, as claimed in the message. Nor have courts ordered any such records to be made public. According to the college spokesman:
Quote:
Occidental spokesman Tranquada: To date, all of the litigation filed regarding President Obama's student records at Occidental has been rejected by the courts. Occidental has not released his transcripts or his student file.

Furthermore there's no trace of the supposed Daily Mail story headlined "Obama Eligibility Questioned," either on the newspaper's Web site or in the Nexis database of stories published by the paper. The claim that the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear a case brought by Leo Donofrio is also false; the high court in fact refused to grant a hearing in that case back on Dec. 8, 2008.

There is a group called the "United States Justice Foundation," and it does list a Gary Kreep as its executive director. But we find no report of any study of Obama's legal spending on its Web site, or any mention of turning information over to Attorney General Eric Holder. We've asked Kreep about this in an e-mail message, and will update this item should we receive a reply.

Update: May 28: Kreep responded simply: "It's all a hoax."

-Brooks Jackson

_________________
Yes We Can! ~ Thomas Jefferson


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 8:03 am 
Online
User avatar

Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:17 pm
Posts: 13600
Location: New England
Occupation: Professor of Sociology
They're back, or so John MacHaffie of NESARA - Restore America - Galatics News believes.
Thursday, Aug. 4, 2011 OBAMA'S CITIZENSHIP CASE REACHES THE SUPREME COURT
Quote:
AP Thursday, July 28, 2011 WASHINGTON D.C. In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama's qualifications for the presidency, the group "Americans for Freedom of Information" has released copies of President Obama's college transcripts from Occidental College . Released today, the school transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California.

The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a
student must claim foreign citizenship. This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama's detractors have been seeking. Along with the evidence that he was first born in Kenya and
there is no record of him ever applying for US citizenship, this is looking pretty grim.

The news has created a firestorm at the White House as the release casts increasing doubt about Obama's legitimacy and qualification to serve as President article titled, "Obama Eligibility Questioned,"
leading some to speculate that the story may overshadow economic issues on Obama's first official visit to the U.K. In a related matter, under growing pressure from several groups, _JUSTICE ANTONIN
SCALIA ANNOUNCED THAT THE SUPREME COURT AGREED ON TUESDAY TO HEAR ARGUMENTS CONCERNING OBAMA'S LEGAL ELIGIBILITY TO SERVE AS PRESIDENT IN A CASE BROUGHT BY LEO DONOFRIO OF __NEW JERSEY__. THIS LAWSUIT CLAIMS OBAMA'S DUAL CITIZENSHIP DISQUALIFIED HIM FROM SERVING AS
PRESIDENT. DONOFRIO'S CASE IS JUST ONE OF _ _18 SUITS__BROUGHT BY CITIZENS DEMANDING PROOF OF OBAMA'S CITIZENSHIP OR QUALIFICATION TO SERVE AS PRESIDENT._


MacHaffie may also be having problems with his Yahoo. He should have posted this message at least two years ago.

_________________
"Someone should tell Mrs. Reagan that young people -- not even young people on drugs -- are not the ones responsible for the major problems besetting the world!" John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany: A Novel, p. 370.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:06 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2009 3:26 pm
Posts: 5522
Location: You Sue-We Serve Legal Support Services, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu, HI 96813
That's what I love about the birthers -- they keep falling for the same half dozen hoaxes over and over. Slap a fresh date on it, re-post it, and watch the fun.

_________________
“I can assure you that already in the Pavlovian swamps of the nutso right, the glands are swelling. Theirs is a different planet from the one you and I inhabit. ” - Newsweek/Daily Beast special correspondent and editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Michael Tomasky, May 12, 2013


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:22 am 
Online
User avatar

Joined: Sat Apr 16, 2011 12:40 am
Posts: 5518
Occupation: retired
Butterfly Bilderberg wrote:
That's what I love about the birthers -- they keep falling for the same half dozen hoaxes over and over. Slap a fresh date on it, re-post it, and watch the fun.

_________________
Mark Twain
Quote:
Research shows that 87.666 per cent of all statistics are made up.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:26 pm 
Online
User avatar

Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:17 pm
Posts: 13600
Location: New England
Occupation: Professor of Sociology
I notified MacHaffie that this was an April Fool's joke and gave him a snopes reference. The article is still up, and my comment was not approved. Truth does not matter to these people.

_________________
"Someone should tell Mrs. Reagan that young people -- not even young people on drugs -- are not the ones responsible for the major problems besetting the world!" John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany: A Novel, p. 370.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:53 pm 
Online
User avatar

Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:17 pm
Posts: 13600
Location: New England
Occupation: Professor of Sociology
MacHaffie has now taken down the April Fool's joke story. He is back on more familiar territory, such as communications from aliens.

_________________
"Someone should tell Mrs. Reagan that young people -- not even young people on drugs -- are not the ones responsible for the major problems besetting the world!" John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany: A Novel, p. 370.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:06 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 12:56 am
Posts: 392
Location: The Left Coast
Has any birther ever been embarrassed about making a stupid mistake like that? I mean, ever??

_________________
Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know. - Alan Watts (1915-1973)


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 5:29 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:34 am
Posts: 423
Occupation: Writer, Doctoral Candidate in Systematic Theology
much ado wrote:
Has any birther ever been embarrassed about making a stupid mistake like that? I mean, ever??


No. The conveniently act like the past didn't happen. And all who bring out the stupidity are liars and not interested in the truth.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 9:54 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:22 am
Posts: 6454
Location: downstairs
TPMMuckraker has a piece today on the April Fool fake email: The Origins Of Rick Perry’s Call To Release Obama’s Grades

_________________
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.--Voltaire


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 8:17 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:22 am
Posts: 6454
Location: downstairs
Los Angeles Times today about the April Fools:

Quote:
'Birthers' claim Obama applied to college as a foreigner ...

And, the fake story said, the transcript was released by Occidental “in compliance with a court order.” ...

Occidental has no record of a “Barry Soetoro” ever attending, nor was there every any such court order, said Jim Tranquada, Occidental College’s communications director, who personally answers the inquiries, demands and pleas of people looking for proof that the president is not who he claims to be. ...

So who, exactly, has access to the president’s record at Occidental?

The hard file for the president is under lock and key,” Tranquada said. The decision to protect the file from unauthorized eyes was made in 2008 by Occidental Registrar Victor Eggito, Tranquada said, not at the behest of Obama or his campaign.

_________________
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.--Voltaire


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 12:00 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 2:48 pm
Posts: 5295
Adelante wrote:

Quote:

The hard file for the president is under lock and key,” Tranquada said. The decision to protect the file from unauthorized eyes was made in 2008 by Occidental Registrar Victor Eggito, Tranquada said, not at the behest of Obama or his campaign.


If the implication is that the President's records are getting unique treatment, being afforded privacy beyond what is generally required by law, that does strike me as odd.

_________________
And please be sure it's in the form of a question. -- T. Jefferson


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 12:09 pm 
Online
User avatar

Joined: Sat Apr 16, 2011 12:40 am
Posts: 5518
Occupation: retired
MaineSkeptic wrote:
Adelante wrote:

Quote:

The hard file for the president is under lock and key,” Tranquada said. The decision to protect the file from unauthorized eyes was made in 2008 by Occidental Registrar Victor Eggito, Tranquada said, not at the behest of Obama or his campaign.


If the implication is that the President's records are getting unique treatment, being afforded privacy beyond what is generally required by law, that does strike me as odd.


I hope that everyone's records are protected from unauthorized eyes. The "under lock and key" sounds like a figure of speech to describe that protection.

_________________
Mark Twain
Quote:
Research shows that 87.666 per cent of all statistics are made up.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 12:33 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2009 12:32 am
Posts: 19978
Location: FEMA Camp 17 -- Malibu (Hey! You! Get off the lawn!)
Occupation: Schadenfreude artist.
The records of famous people often become the object of peeping toms who have access to confidential records as a general matter. Securing Mr. Obama's records may have been as much to protect those records as to protect peeping toms from their own weaknesses. I see nothing wrong with what was done, if the records were more securely protected than those of Mary Hizzenhouzer.

_________________
When there are a finite number of ways to screw something up, Orly Taitz will find an infinite number of ways to do so. (The Sternsig Rule.)


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 1:01 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2012 4:06 am
Posts: 2483
Location: Flat earth with the dragons.
This board requires you to be registered and logged-in before you can view hidden messages

Edit: Sorry Tollie didn't see the April Fool's joke reference. But a prestigious scholarship,much like a birth announcement, can usually be found in a local paper.

_________________
"QUALES ILLIC HOMUNCULI!" - laughed Nostradamus, foretelling the appearance of birthers.

"Your politics have no relation to morals."-
Niccolo Machiavelli to the Tea Party


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 1:12 pm 
Online
User avatar

Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:17 pm
Posts: 13600
Location: New England
Occupation: Professor of Sociology
borealis wrote:
This board requires you to be registered and logged-in before you can view hidden messages

Thank Sen. James Buckley for that. Student privacy rights extend so deep that parents often have no knowledge that their kids are in trouble until it is too late to do much. I've had several conversations with parents that began "I had no idea that..." It is not that colleges and universities are forbidden to communicate with parents, but it is done with great deliberation. In addition, we no longer stand in the place of parents ("in loco parentis"). The problem is that nobody else does, either, partly because they don't have the needed information.

_________________
"Someone should tell Mrs. Reagan that young people -- not even young people on drugs -- are not the ones responsible for the major problems besetting the world!" John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany: A Novel, p. 370.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 1:58 pm 
Online
User avatar

Joined: Sat Apr 16, 2011 12:40 am
Posts: 5518
Occupation: retired
The State Department administers the various education exchange programs. I do not believe one can get a Fulbright Scholarship for lower level undergraduate work. The program is for graduating seniors and graduate students. Additionally, there are the requirements for applying for such a Scholarship such as applying through the consulate in one's home country, going for interviews at the consulate and showing ties to the home country that would make sure you would return as agreed in the contract. As we saw with Lolo and Barack,Sr., the students are carefully monitored.

http://exchanges.state.gov/academicexch ... ogram.html

Applying for a Fulbright Scholarship is not something you can do while being a resident of the US.

This is one of the easiest to disprove of the birth claims, IMHO.

_________________
Mark Twain
Quote:
Research shows that 87.666 per cent of all statistics are made up.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 2:23 pm 
Online
User avatar

Joined: Sat Apr 16, 2011 12:40 am
Posts: 5518
Occupation: retired
Also, I did not find Occidental on the list of sponsors for Fulbright Scholars from abroad. Additionally, Occidental does not take students from abroad for the first year. The F-1 visa requires a permanent foreign residence and the application must be done in the home country. See the other requirements for the Oxy Foreign Exchange students here:

http://www.oxy.edu/x5075.xml

_________________
Mark Twain
Quote:
Research shows that 87.666 per cent of all statistics are made up.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 2:27 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2010 9:56 pm
Posts: 9385
Sterngard Friegen wrote:
The records of famous people often become the object of peeping toms who have access to confidential records as a general matter. Securing Mr. Obama's records may have been as much to protect those records as to protect peeping toms from their own weaknesses. I see nothing wrong with what was done, if the records were more securely protected than those of Mary Hizzenhouzer.


Further, birther criminals have a proven track record of stealing and tampering with Obama's records. It is only reasonable to protect what thieves have already tried to steal in the past.

_________________
L—d! said my mother, what is all this story about? — A Cock and a Bull, said Yorick — And one of the best of its kind I ever heard. -- Sterne


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 2:34 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2011 1:37 am
Posts: 566
I am not sure of the timing of the Registrar's decision to secure Obama's transcripts with the two incidents in 2008 where contract workers accessed his student loan and passport information. However, I don't see anything insidious about making them more secure. Nitwits are fond of saying that GWB released his transcripts, but that didn't happen. They were leaked to the public, likely by a person with access to the Registrar's office.

The phrase "under lock and key" was not the best choice of words. All transcripts are under lock and key with access only by authorized persons in the Registrar's office. A better choice might have been to say that, currently only the Registrar has access to Obama's transcript.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 2:46 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 2:48 pm
Posts: 5295
Mr. Gneiss wrote:
The phrase "under lock and key" was not the best choice of words. All transcripts are under lock and key with access only by authorized persons in the Registrar's office. A better choice might have been to say that, currently only the Registrar has access to Obama's transcript.


Good point. If the President's records are subject to the same public access restrictions as everyone else's and the heightened security involves only procedures internal to Occidental, I have no problem with that.

_________________
And please be sure it's in the form of a question. -- T. Jefferson


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 5:24 pm 
Offline

Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2011 11:29 am
Posts: 347
MaineSkeptic wrote:
Adelante wrote:

Quote:

The hard file for the president is under lock and key,” Tranquada said. The decision to protect the file from unauthorized eyes was made in 2008 by Occidental Registrar Victor Eggito, Tranquada said, not at the behest of Obama or his campaign.


If the implication is that the President's records are getting unique treatment, being afforded privacy beyond what is generally required by law, that does strike me as odd.


I'd conclude from that statement alone that his records probably are getting 'special treatment' over and beyond the norm otherwise a need for Victor Eggido to make a "decision" to protect the file from unauthorized eyes would not have arisen in the first place. You don't have to "make a decision" just to follow the existing procedures.

That being understood I'd agree with Stern's apparent common sense view that what they are doing is understandable, reasonable and consistent with what would be expected in the circumstances. Having seen Tranquada's remarks I'd far rather counter any birther spin on such special treatment by arguing the sensible precautionary need for it than by trying to argue that it isn't happening.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2012 6:08 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:09 pm
Posts: 3104
Location: LA,CA
Occupation: Game designer and code monkey
Judge Mental wrote:
That being understood I'd agree with Stern's apparent common sense view that what they are doing is understandable, reasonable and consistent with what would be expected in the circumstances.

Totally -- and they're the sort of circumstances that would be appropriate for anyone whose celebrity might induce prying by people who had no right to do so.

About 25 years ago, I was running a creative start-up (some weird people, on purpose, lol). I was rummaging in the refrigerator one day and came across a vial of blood. Since we only had 8 people at that time, it didn't take me long to find out who had put it there. So I asked him why he had put a vial of blood in the the fridge.

"It's Berry Gordy's blood," he replied, as if that explained everything. "That makes it a collectible." He told me that his girlfriend had been temping for some health-related company, Berry Gordy had come in for some test or something, and his girlfriend had snagged some of it for him.

I thought it was seriously creepy in many aspects and (of course) made him get it out of there that day. He did not turn out to be a long-term employee.

People do that with celebrities, all the damned time.

_________________
Ducktape

"Still a man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest." Paul Simon, The Boxer
ImageImageImage


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 22 posts ]     

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to:  
View new posts | View active topics



Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group