POLITICALPYRO CONTRIBUTORS

Ed Pilkington in
New York
guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 22 November 2009 19.45 GMT

Neil Sankey has spent his life investigating organised crimes. As a former British police officer with almost 20 years experience, he was seconded to elite units of Scotland Yard through most of the 1970s and now runs his own private detective agency in California.

Over the years he has been involved in some big investigations. As part of the Special Branch and Bomb Squad he monitored British leftwing groups and the IRA, and in America his clients have included several big car companies.

Birthers against Obama: ‘An illegal president, a foreign imposter’ Link to this audio

But never has he handled anything quite as monumental as the investigation that is absorbing his energies today.

Sankey is pursuing what he believes to be fraud on a gigantic scale — a conspiracy, no less, to infiltrate and destroy the free world by putting a foreign imposter into the White House.

Sankey is a member of the fringe alliance known widely as the Birthers (he dislikes the expression, considering it pejorative). Together with other activists, he seeks to prove that Barack Obama is not a true American and is therefore ineligible to be president.

Over the past year Sankey has been at the centre of some of the most aggressive efforts by the Birthers to unseat the president. At the end of last year he tried to block Obama’s inauguration by contacting all 538 electoral college representatives who formally elect the president. More recently, he has carried out his own probe into Obama’s personal identification history which has revealed, he believes, a suspicious multiplicity of social security numbers.

Sankey says his fascination began with the realisation “that this man wasn’t what he said he was. He wasn’t an ordinary Democrat — he was far more extreme than that.” So about a year ago he began reading blogs and websites that claimed to expose Obama’s foreign roots, his spurious Hawaiian birth certificate and the $2m White House cover-up that has prevented the public finding out about the plot.

His travels put him in touch with Orly Taitz, one of the most energetic and flamboyant of the Birther leaders. Of Moldovan extraction, she emigrated via Israel to California where she works as a dentist and lawyer. She has filed numerous legal suits around the country on behalf of serving US military personnel attempting to prevent their deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan on the grounds that they should not be taking orders from an illegally serving commander-in-chief.

Sankey’s journey from having worked in some of the most elite police units in Britain to taking part in a movement dedicated to the pursuit of a paranoid conspiracy theory may seem bizarre. But he insists it has been a natural progression. He joined the Hampshire force in 1961, and was seconded as a detective sergeant to Scotland Yard where he developed a specialism tracking leftwing political groups and the IRA.

“We created an operation into what we called revolutionary criminality — monitoring leftwing bookshops and extremist literature, following the leftist fringe and the Marxist links of the IRA.”

In 1980 he moved to California, set up his agency, and became a naturalised American in 1985.

Sankey contends that his police experience in England now informs his fight against Obama. “It’s quite obvious to me — America is heading towards a socialised state just as has happened in Europe. Socialised medicine, everyone on the dole, and when everything collapses you tip the scales into Marxism.”

He also believes his training in Scotland Yard is now reaping benefits for the Birthers. The same techniques he used to analyse the IRA’s associations he is now applying to Obama. Most recently, he carried out an exhaustive search of databases that he claims threw up 140 different identification numbers and addresses for “Barack Obama”. He admits the findings prove nothing — there is nothing to link the entries to the president — but he believes it raises further doubts that need investigating.

Taitz says Sankey’s UK police expertise has been invaluable. “He has had superb training. I have the greatest respect for Scotland Yard.”

The Birther movement is not a unique phenomenon within US politics. Bill Clinton was accused by conspiracy theorists of having murdered his friend and White House legal adviser Vince Foster; George Bush had to contend with the Truthers who believe he was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

But the Birthers are unlike previous movements in that they are focused on who Obama is rather than what he does.

“There is no other president who has had his citizenship questioned in this way,” says Patricia Turner, an expert in folklore at the University of California, Davis. Turner says that the popular Birther theories that Obama has used fake Hawaiian documents to disguise the fact he was born in Kenya or Indonesia are retellings of an old story. “This is just a proxy for old-fashioned racism. They are driven by hostility towards anything they see as foreign or exotic.”

Although the Birthers are on the fringe of American politics, they are part of a wider surge of rightwing anger towards Obama’s perceived socialist policies that is sweeping the country.

As such they can command considerable support. An internet petition demanding an official inquiry into Obama’s origins has been signed by almost 500,000; critics say the number is inflated by multiple clicks.

Like any virulent conspiracy theory, that of Obama’s birth has proved immune to the intervention of fact. When Obama’s birth certificate in Hawaii was digitally scanned for all to see, it was denounced as a forgery. The birth notices printed by two Hawaii newspapers announcing his birth in August 1961 were similarly dismissed.

Dozens of legal actions have been brought before the courts by Taitz and other Birther leaders, and so far every one has been thrown out. Last month a federal judge dismissed Taitz’s lawsuit seeking to challenge the chain of military command up to Obama as commander-in-chief. In a devastating ruling, the judge accused Taitz of trying to “emasculate the military” in a way that would “leave this country defenceless”.

None of these setbacks have dissuaded Sankey. He says accusations of racism are smears that he has come to expect. “The objection is not Obama’s colour but his politics. I like him as a person, I just wish he was genuine.”

They say… Whats good for the goose, is good for its gander… or if you like, If you can’t beat them join them.

As they blame Bush, ‘W’, GW… Which ever you prefer, for everything that is wrong with the world, I thought a bit of turn about, tongue and cheek was way over due. Hence the reason for the title of this post. Now, lets get to the meat.

Congress Needs to Beware of Growing Populist Anger

By Norman J. Ornstein | Roll Call
Wednesday, June 10, 2009

One of the main reasons why the Democratic Party lost control of the House in 1994 was that House Democrats responded too late to growing public dissatisfaction with their actions. The 111th Congress, though very active in its passage of legislation, needs to pay attention to the current rise in populist sentiment in the electorate. In order to effectively curb these feelings, Congress should implement reforms to increase transparency in government.

Why did the Democrats lose the House in 1994 after 40 years of rule?

One can make a case that the early stumbles of the Clinton White House, including the excruciating delay in enacting an economic plan along with the failure to get health care through, created a backlash against ineffective one-party government. One can make a case that former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s (R-Ga.) long-term plan to nationalize the Congressional elections, culminating in the “Contract with America,” finally provided a coherent and attractive alternative. But a critical element in the public backlash against the status quo in Congress was the populist anger at the elitism and corruption that the public saw engulfing Washington, D.C.

The first eruption of that populist anger came in 1989, with a pay raise for federal officials that had been endorsed by outgoing President Ronald Reagan, incoming President George H. W. Bush and all Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders from Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas) to the aforementioned Gingrich. But that broad bipartisan support meant nothing to average voters struggling with a sluggish economy and stagnant wages.

remember vividly going to board the train at Union Station to attend the House Democrats’ retreat at the Greenbrier resort–the location itself was a public relations nightmare akin to auto executives flying private jets to D.C. to beg for public money. We had to run a gauntlet of angry protesters holding signs and hurling epithets.

The leadership needs to avoid any sense that it is protecting Members because of their personal ties to them.

That was followed in 1992 by the House Bank brouhaha, revealed by Roll Call, which showed that a slew of House Members had overdrawn their accounts at the House Bank. It did not matter that the “bank” was not a bank in the traditional sense, but a repository for Members’ paychecks until they could be deposited in other accounts, and that the only money in the bank was from the lawmakers themselves; the story created a firestorm emphasizing that Members of Congress played by a different set of rules than the rest of us, exempt from the constraints or fines that we face. Many superb lawmakers lost their next elections (or retired prematurely) as a direct consequence.

The next train wreck was predictable. For some good reasons related to separation of powers issues, Congress exempted itself from regulation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and other executive agencies. But to the public (and to the minority party), this was another clear case of an imperial, insulated, pampered and arrogant Congress applying onerous laws to others while exempting itself.

Throughout 1993 and 1994, I went regularly to the leaders in the House importuning them to act to solve this problem. The answer was easy: create an independent office within the legislative branch to enforce the laws where applicable to Congress, avoiding separation of powers issues. Tom Mann and I worked with Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Dick Swett (D-N.H.) to come up with a bill creating an Office of Compliance. Early passage would signal a Congress ahead of the curve, moving to reform itself.

But the leaders did not think it was that big a deal and waited until the last days of the 103rd Congress to pass the bill–too late to avoid the surge in anger or to defend the indefensible, and they went into the 1994 election looking like they acted only after getting caught red-handed.

I raise all this history because it is déjà vu all over again. The populist anger is back, and not just in the United States–the reaction in Britain to parliamentary expense abuses is directly reminiscent of the reaction to the House Bank. So far, it has not been directed at Congress, in part because the 111th Congress has been so remarkably productive, in part because of the popularity of President Barack Obama, in part because of the ineptitude of the minority party leadership. But one can see the train wreck coming.

Some of the seeds go back to former Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), preceded by Jack Abramoff and former Reps. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.), Tom DeLay (R-Texas), Bob Ney (R-Ohio), Jim Traficant (D-Ohio), et al. Of course, some of the cases contributed mightily to the Republican loss of Congress after 12 years of rule, but all underscored a continuing public sense that Congress was more concerned with feathering its own nest than with the problems facing average Americans in their everyday lives.

Throw in Illinois’ former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and Sen. Roland Burris (D), a case getting more and more putrid. Add the Congressional bailouts of banks and their executives and the auto industry, amplified especially by the American International Group bonuses. The scapegoats now are AIG and auto and bank executives, but that can switch in an instant to politicians.

Now throw in the PMA Group and Reps. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.). The Murtha case, of course, goes well beyond PMA, to include throwing sensitive national security-related earmarks with abandon to companies in his district that were inept or corrupt and to rewarding or punishing companies that used the right lobbying firm or did the right business with Murtha’s relatives. Include also executive officials in the Defense Department and elsewhere giving no-bid contracts to companies with ties to Murtha and his family members to curry favor with the powerful lawmaker. I can’t sort out from this vantage point what is illegal or not, but it all stinks to high heaven.

Simply asking whether the ethics committee is investigating the issue is not enough. I hope the committee is acting, and I believe that the leadership of the panel, under Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and ranking member Jo Bonner (R-Ala.), is finally functional. I also am truly encouraged by the start of the new Office of Congressional Ethics, also with top-flight leadership.

But if Congress wants to avoid the kind of public anger that engulfed the political process in 1994 and 2006, it needs to go much further. The leadership needs to avoid any sense that it is protecting Members because of their personal ties to them. And Congress needs to enact further reforms to make the earmarking and contracting process work better.

The House might start with Rep. Jeff Flake’s (R-Ariz.) idea to delink earmarks from campaign contributions. My own idea to create independent commissions to rank needs and projects in Congressional districts akin to Senators’ judicial selection panels would help. And addressing the issue of contracting–which is what Cunningham did, getting bribes in return for steering sensitive defense and intelligence contracts to the corrupt companies offering the bribes–is critical for reform.

Every contract issued by the federal government needs to be put online before the contract takes effect, with a special scrutiny for every no-bid contract. There must be guidelines for making sure the process is above-board and sanctions for those who award contracts that do not meet the guidelines.

The current Democratic Congress is comparatively well-regarded by the public for its performance. Democrats are certainly in no immediate danger of losing their majority or even losing many seats in 2010. But public opinion is fragile here, and it would not take much to ignite that populist outrage. Acting now is smart politics–and very good policy.

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI.

This a very funny video that chronicle’s all those thrown under the Obama Bus.

PajamasTV hasn’t really been in the news since it hired Sam “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher to report on the war in Gaza, but it’s still kicking. Some of its most popular content is coming from black conservative comic Alphonzo Rachel, who sometimes appears as “President Zobama.” He’s put together a music video that is mostly notable for the way it captures the little memes and stories that have been forgotten outside of the deep conservative base.

A little decoding: it is considered noteworthy, and hilarious, that President Obama dispatches political allies who become a problem to him. Indeed, this is pretty strange and no politician has done it before. But since the cliche “throwing [person or thing] under the bus” took hold, conservatives have applied it to anyone that Obama apparently distanced him from, ever.

• The video begins with Rachel running over a TV image of “my white grandmama,” whom conservatives believe was “thrown under the bus” in Obama’s speech on race when he talked about her admitted uneasiness among black men.

• The reference to the “brother in a shack” is to George Obama, the president’s half brother, who lives in Nairobi.

• The lyric about the “magic negro” story is sort of garbled — Rachel says the “New York Times called” Obama that, but it was black critic David Edelstein in The Los Angeles Times. Rachel jokes that Rush Limbaugh was pilloried for citing the comment, but it didn’t really become an issue until Republican National Committee chairman candidate Chip Saltsman sent around a CD of parody songs including “Barack the Magic Negro,” sung by an Al Sharpton impersonator.

Anyway, that’s the state of PajamasTV at the moment.

Thanks 2 David Weigel and The Washington Independent