Donald Trump Beats a Dead Horse; Revives Birther Nonsense

"Oi," indeed! This man is SUCH a nutball. How his endorsement helps Mitt Romney in any way is beyond me.

LOL! Wonder if Romney is behind closed doors saying "Crap! Not Trump!"
Anyway, I have questions about Obama's history here and there, but yeah, you would think Trump would be sharing all this info with Romney and Romney would be all over the news with his ace in the hole against Obama.

This isn't a "birther issue". I for one never believed the birth certificate BS. The Clinton smear machine would have found it in the primaries and used it after Obama rocketed to the forefront on Super Tuesday, 2008. I do question his college transcripts, grades, and would love to get hold a a copy of his thesis, all of which we have no clue what is there. How does one afford Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard? He didn't come from wealth. Student loans just don't carry the whole expense. There is something there which he does not want released.

obviously the Communist Chinese paid his way through college in hopes that he would someday become President and give Taiwan back to them, Eamon. Gee I wonder why they still don't have Taiwan?

Always the simple, sarcastic, response Chris. What logical reason could he have for not releasing this information.

Not being interested in doing research because of the teabagger agenda is different than the information not being available.

Really? Still using "teabagger"?

Eamon, as I have noted many times before here, whether or not anyone believes the birth issue is so, I do not believe that Phil Berg, the attorney who filed the original birth certificate case, acted alone. He filed this case during the nomination and he was a lifelong Democrat and staunch Clinton supporter. The money it took for the investigation and his time devoted to this legal matter had to have been paid for by people with deep pockets, and I will always believe the Clintons were behind it. Now that is just my opinion, and it will remain my opinion until someone proves that I am wrong.

As far as his schooling, there were many blogs that noted he had a Fulbright Scholarship, but the refute was always that the Fulbright Scholarship is only for graduate students. That is only partially correct, however. There is something called the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program which may have been confused.

This program, as you see here, resembles what Obama might have gotten. (We can only speculate since we don't have the facts). You see that the program includes a non-degree full-time study, combined with community service. I think this is from where Obama started his interest in community service. Because the program only takes the student for one year and a semester and it is a non-degree program, this is why he had to transfer to Columbia.

And let's be the first to bring Snopes into the fray because you know how they live and die by Snopes. The "urban legend" of their title here is "Recently released records document that Barack Obama received college financial aid in the US as a 'foregn student from Indonesia.'" This is followed by FALSE, the only two claims that Snopes ever uses. It's either all true or all false, and there's no gray area. Now there may be gray area for anything and everything else in the world, but when it hits Snopes, it's either TRUE or FALSE.

What's false that they say is false is that there is no documentation that he received financial aid as a foregn student. How could there be when all this information has been hidden? Okay, Snopes gets a point for that part.

Now they take advantage that the email was circulated with the April Fools' Day date. We have no idea who started this circulation, however. It may very well have started from people who wished to make the "birthers" look like idiots. But Snopes doesn't exactly make that possiblity known because it doesn't work as well. The FOI never did release any such information and there was no such group at the time, so Snopes contends. Okay, now we have two points for Snopes. We'll even give Snopes points 3 and points 4 for no such thing as a Daily Mail or AP article existing.

Next, they give the link to Occidental where they say that Obama was a student "from fall 1979 through spring 1981 and then transferred to Columbia University in New York." The Occidental site also goes on to say that, "Neither Obama’s image or name appear in any Occidental yearbooks or the weekly student newspaper for the years he attended. The picture featured on this page is the only one we have of the president; it was sent in with his Occidental application."

I don't have any doubts that he attended Occidental for a couple of years; I think he probably did. Then Snopes goes on to talk about the Fulbright scholarship that was alluded to in the circulated email. As they say, there is no Fulbright Scholarship that is awarded for undergraduates. However, if we take a look at the listings on US Dept. of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Fulbright Program Grants are all listed. None of those is a program except for post-graduates. Snopes appears to earn point 6, but not so fast. In the right-hand margin, under Fulbright Fact Sheets, you will see a link for Graduate and Undergraduate Students. Clicking that link will take you here. So now we are on the page where the heading reads, Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, Graduate and Undergraduate Student Programs. (UGRAD)The Quick Snapshot of the Fulbright Student Program is in the center in a tan box. With the same heading, in blue, on the left of that tan box, it says, "The Program emphasizes leadership development." The column on the right, second to last heading is the scholarship I think Obama received. It says, "provide
semester and academic-year scholarships to student leaders from underrepresented sectors in the Americas, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East to participate in exchanges at U.S. colleges or universities."

Now we can learn more about this program and the various segments it accepts if we look at the individual pages that describe the program. It is administered (that means basically who does the paperwork) through different organizations within the Fulbright Student Program and under the auspices of the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. We see that Indonesia is listed as one of the countries from which it accepts students here. We see here that it (the Fulbright Student Program) is "supported by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs." We already knew that, but I'm just making the point again so no one loses his or her place. It says, "Students participate in community service projects and internships." I think this is where Obama was "discovered." You see it also says, "All participants are issued U.S. student exchange (J-1) visas. Upon conclusion of their scholarship, students must return to their home countries to complete their undergraduate degree." This is the snag, and why I believe that Obama does not talk about his college past. Either he did return to his home country and never went to Columbia, or went later, or he didn't return as he was supposed to, and someone or some people of note got him enrolled at Columbia for a matriculation program so he could graduate in the states. There is no other reason I can understand for the secrecy involved in those years. Now you can say whatever you want to say, but you've got no proof, and Snopes has no proof that I am wrong either.

I meant to add: This could also be the beginning of his SS# from CT because he was supposed to have gone back to Indonesia, but instead went on to Columbia in NY. He needed to have more than just an expired student visa because he was an illegal alien without some valid identification. This would also explain why so few people knew him at Columbia. He was advised to keep a low profile and he did.

Snopes absolutely does have designations other than TRUE or FALSE. They have gradations of both, as in PARTIALLY TRUE. They always explain what part they have found evidence to prove and what parts they have found evidence to debunk.

Well, maybe that's correct, Rory, but for the most part, from what I have seen(though I must admit that I don't use Snopes as my primary reference as if it were Encyclopedia Britannica, like you people do) the headings are True and False. If you read carefully through what I said above, that Partially True heading should have been applied in this case as well.

"You can say the Manchurian candidate, I mean nobody knows anything about him"

Unacceptable nonsense. Implying that Obama is a brainwashed tool of Communist China, it's absurd 1950's era paranoia. Nobody knows anything about him? BS. I have read books and articles about Obama written by people who have researched his youth and childhood. It's like global warming- you can pretend that there is no Record if you like, but that does not change the fact that the Record exists.

Thanks to birther paranoia (actually, racist smear tactics more than fear, they know they're wrong) we actually know more about Obama's past than any previous president. In my 50+ years I have never seen any president's background discussed so widely for so long. Years ago (before inauguration) I saw his birth certificate on line as well as the birth announcements posted in not one but two Honolulu papers. When he was president of Harvard Law Review (again, first black president) there was an article on him in the Toronto Star (here in Canada).

The only thing, other than the persistence of this birther claptrap, that distinguishes him from other presidents is his skin colour. Those two facts are related. If it looks like racism, acts like racism and talks like racism then its racism.

I've never seen so much attention paid to race except by those who've made his race such an issue. I can overlook it when I see people who are from the south here in the states where I know bigotry still exists to a large degree relative to the northeast where I live, and so I know from whence they come when they think it's an issue. Otherwise, for those who make race such an issue, you have to wonder whether they aren't right about racism. The twist is that it's those who make it the issue who are the racists because all they see is that he's black. Being Black is obviously a very different kind of person to people like that. It's a race that needs defense constantly because either there's some guilt involved in one's own present perception, or a past where they were so bigoted, they need to make it up in some way. And I have seen posts on this site where people have admitted to being racists as kids and brought up in racist ramilies. This type is the most outspoken for blacks anywhere. Your guilt is not my guilt and your perceptions are not mine. Get over it.

Birther = racist.

All birthers deny this vehemently. I'm sure they like all the other black presidents just fine.

What is really, really funny -- in the peculiar sense -- is not the ongoing nonsense about Obama's past but the fact that Donald Trump is taken seriously as a political actor by anyone. This is a man who wears the most ridiculous combover in the history of hairstyles and thinks it fools anyone, treats his wives like automobiles by trading them in for a new model frequently and has taken self-promoting hucksterism to new heights.

There are bad politicians in every country, stupid politicians who make you wonder how they ever got elected. We in Canada have had no shortage of them. But only in America would wingnuts like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Herman Cain and Donald Trump be seriously considered for the highest office in the land.

2011 was not even the first time that Trump postured absurdly at running for President. He did it once before I believe.

On one level, have to take him seriously because of his money and his ability to influence stupid people. On another level, no need to take him seriously at all.

These days in the Republican Party a one-legged dog with rabies and pattern of spots that looked like Jesus eating cotton candy would be a serious candidate. Might even be an improvement.

Obviously there isn't much to criticize. Unemployment is down in our area, there are 100,000 new jobs, my retirement fund is rebounding, "Obamacare" has made it possible for ALL our children to get health care regardless of existing health conditions, etc. He needs to pick a different tune.