Sorry, birthers, Obama gets on Kansas ballot
Yael T. AbouhalkahThat didn’t take long.
On Monday morning the State Objections Board in Kansas decided President Barack Obama could stay on the ballot this fall.
Thus the state avoided being the laughingstock of the nation for accepting ridiculous birther arguments that Obama was not born in the United States.
The meeting had attracted national attention - most of it negative, deservedly so - because Secretary of State Kris Kobach, Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer last week had indicated that all three Republicans were taking this foolishness seriously.
The objection had been filed by a Manhattan man who testified that Obama’s birth certificate had been tampered with. In other words, it wasn’t legitimate.
Kobach and the board took the case under advisement, rather than rejecting it out of hand, given that the president of the United States had released his birth certificate and state officials in Hawaii - WHERE HE WAS BORN - had said the document was legitimate.
Kobach had said Kansas officials wanted to look at some extra documents, you know, just to make sure.
On Monday, though, the followup meeting was short and sweet.
Orly Taitz, a leading figure in the birther movement, wanted to testify but that wasn’t allowed. Darn, now that would have been a great show.
Partly because the Manhattan man had dropped his official objection on Friday, Obama’s name got to stay on the Kansas fall ballot after all.
Joe Jones
8 months agoIs there a reason the Star insists on using a false, pejorative and insulting name for people that are interested in determining that people who run for office are in fact qualified for that office?
Does Liberalism have any defense other than marginalizing and name calling?
Is there any room for objectivity in journalism any more?
Does it matter that the name of the Hospital on the certificate Obama produced–is a name no hospital in Hawaii ever had?
I think we all know the answers to these questions.
Everyone line up and get your Star Kool Aid
Louis Goseland
8 months agoJoe, this is an editorial. It’s from a member of the editorial board. It is not intended to be taken as journalism. That is why it is segregated from the other articles on this site and in the paper. The purpose of such a piece is to provide commentary, not objectivity.
Richard L Wagner
8 months agoJoe, maybe I could help with your question, as to why the birthers would attract such ridicule and scorn.
Could it be because they bring it upon themselves?
Sam Sewell
8 months ago• Evidence Obama Ineligibility Movement is Winning http://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2012/07/evidence-obama-ineligibility-movement.html
I have a question for my readers. If the ineligibility movement was not scoring significant victories why would the Democratic Party and Obama’s supporters be trying so hard to silence the issue? Why not encourage the legal establishment to rule on the evidence and the law, rather than avoiding the facts? Why not encourage the Supreme Court to rule, rather than evade? Why not encourage a public open discussion of the ineligibility issue? Why not have public debates on national television? Why not release the many documents that reveal Obama’s history? Why not give millions of citizens the information they want? Or, why not simply ignore it? Why indeed? I know why. The “birthers” are winning and Obama can’t afford to give them any more ammunition!+
Phil Cardarella
8 months agoFYI:
Mr. Kobach (who was actually paid — to our great embarrassment — to teach Constitutional Law at UMKC) is apparently unaware that individual Secretaries of State and other election authorities do not have the authority to determine the eligibility for the office of the President to appear on the ballot.
As most bright 4th graders can tell you, the President of the US is NOT elected by the voters of individual states. Voters cast their ballots for ELECTORS who are pledged (but not legally bound) to vote for a person seeking the office.
Hence, the College of Electors is the SOLE judge of the eligibility of an individual to serve as President. Not Kris & the Kooks.
Of course, all three of those fools know that. They just had an uncontrolable desire to embarrass the State of Kansas. And get 15 seconds of Rachel Madddow making fun of them.
And, Sam? The “birthers” are winning in the same sense that Custer did at Little Big Horn.
Reginald Thornton
8 months agoSorry, Yael, Kobach still won’t give you an actual example of extremism to justfy your mischaracterization.
Reginald Thornton
8 months agoWhat is that, Phil- “College of Electors”? Would you be referring to the Electoral College? Google doesn’t have anything called College of Electors. But, then, you’re the expert on it, and not Professor Kobach, Constitutional Law scholar.
You probably know better than the Constitution which thinks each state determines rules for accepting and approving candidates on its ballot. And the stupid states also think they can delegate the responsobilities to an official, as if it were some official duty.
Maybe you even think the Constitution mandates that the President be born outside the U.S. But, then, you wouldn’t be an Obama supporter.
William Buchanan
8 months agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ElectoralCollege%28United_States%29
Under the sub-heading “Etymology”:
“Although the United States Constitution refers to “Electors” and “electors”, the name “Electoral College” — or any other name — is never used to describe the electors collectively. It was not until the early 19th century that the name “Electoral College” came into general usage as the collective designation for the electors selected to cast votes for President and Vice President. It was first written into federal law in 1845 and today the term appears in 3 U.S.C.§ 4, in the section heading and in the text as “college of electors.”[12]”
Raymond James
8 months agoThe state of Hawaii certified that President Obama was born in the US and is elegable by age. End of discussion.
Wait untill Kansas has someone that wants to run then lets deny them the ability to be on the ballot.
Senator McCain was not born in the US he was born in Panama.
Many say President Obama cannot be president because his father was not born in the US. His father was born in Africa Mitt Romenys father was born in Mexico and immigrated to the US as a teenager. Welfare helped him and his family get a start when his parents came back to the US. They left to join a poligomist LDS colony in Mexico rather than comply with US law. Not realy clear if MItts grandfather brought all of his wives back to the US or left some in Mexico.
Anyway my point both Obama and Romeny have fathers who were born outside the US.
but lets keep asking the half white/half black guy for his documents and not ask anyone else for there paperwork. No no racism here.
Now lets screeam we are not racist because we do not recognize how racist we are.
Frank Davis
8 months agoWhy did the Manhattan man dropped his objection; maybe he had a God Moment, the kind you have when you decide you’re not ready to meet your Maker anytime soon?
Alinsky Rule 7. Tactics
“Tactics are those conscious deliberate acts by which human beings live with each other and deal with the world around them. … Here our concern is with the tactic of taking; how the Have-Nots can take power away from the Haves.” p.126
Always remember the first rule of power tactics:
“Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”
“Never go outside the expertise of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat…. [and] the collapse of communication.
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”
“A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
“A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time….”
“Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.”
“If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside… every positive has its negative.”
“The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…
“…any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When your ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments…. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the ‘others’ come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target…’
“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.”
Reginald Thornton
8 months agoRick, pay attention to all the words, and not just the small ones or only the ones that support your bias. The point I am arguing against is whether the electoral college tells each state whom they may place on their ballot. Wrong. States have their own processes.
Henry Brow
8 months agoat this point why is anyone wasting time on this…. couldnt they find something else with the slightist bit of hope of winning…
Hallie Lewis Roberts
7 months, 4 weeks agoJoe Jones’ comment was neither toxic nor spam. You people who are drinking the KoolAid and swallowing the liberal lies can’t stand to hear the truth. Obama’s online “birth certificate” is an obvious fake and everyone who has a brain cell working knows it. His social security number is one he stole from somebody else. It’s not his. He is a total fake and the biggest liar that ever lived. He is not eligible to be president, and he ought not to be on any ballots anywhere!