Day: April 27, 2011
Record Share of Personal Income Was Government Aid in 2010
18.3%
Of the nation’s total personal income was a payment from the government for Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, unemployment benefits and other programs in 2010, up from 12% just a decade ago, and an all-time high. Wages accounted for the lowest share of income — 51% — since the government began keeping track in 1929, according to USA Today.
Jackson: ‘Birtherism’ Is All About Race
Any discussion of his birthplace is a code word. It calls upon ancient racial fears.
— Jesse Jackson, in an interview with Politico, on questioning President Obama’s citizenship. Jackson added that this “is the most personal attacks on any president ever. Whose personal religion has ever been challenged before? That has strong racial overtones.”
Barack Was Born!
Obama finally put to bed that birther jive.
Though we always knew that crap was contrived.
Now we’ve seen the document,
And it’s a legal testament
That proves Barack was born — in Hawaii — alive!
Is the GOP Afraid of Trump?
The question is no longer whether Donald Trump has disqualified himself from being a serious presidential candidate (because he has, a long time ago). Instead, it’s whether he’s staining the GOP by association. How much longer can serious Republicans stay silent as Trump — who visits New Hampshire today — hijacks this whole process? Simply put, what Trump is doing is the equivalent of a GOP presidential candidate in 1995 campaigning on the Vince Foster rumors, or a candidate in 1968 suggesting that LBJ was connected to the Kennedy assassination. It is crazy conspiracy talk that has gone mainstream. And while Republicans quietly dismiss Trump as a sideshow, they aren’t saying a lot publicly. What are they afraid of?
— NBC’s First Read.
Obama 2012 Campaign Lays Trap for Birthers, GOP
Seeking to put an end to the “birther” conversation — and, incidentally, elevating Donald Trump on the day of his trip to New Hampshire — the White House says it has convinced the State of Hawaii to make an exception to state policy and release a copy of his long form birth certificate, the holy grail of obsessives.
It’s possible that Smith and some of his cohorts in the D.C. press corps actually believe that the White House was “seeking to end” the birther conspiracy, but it is highly unlikely that anyone in the White House political shop or the Obama 2012 campaign is that naive. For the sake of the future of our republic, let’s hope not.
A more realistic, albeit cynical, view is that the Obama campaign is using the controversy about the president’s birth certificate as a wedge issue — that the release of the document is intended to drive birthers batshit crazy, prompting them to escalate their conspiracy theorizing to new levels of absurdity — which in turn will force establishment Republican pols, including GOP presidential candidates, to take a position for or against a key segment of their wingnut base.
The Obama campaign is banking on the fact that the release of the long-form certificate will resolve any doubt about the president’s birth origins among level-headed swing voters. Settling the issue among independents, the constituency that will decide the presidential race in a close election, will put the eventual Republican nominee in an awkward position. He (or she) must have both the GOP’s wingnut base and sensible independents to win next year.
If you think the release of Obama’s birth certificate will put the controversy about his birth to rest, here are two words to consider: “grassy knoll.” Just take a gander at the comments on Ben Smith’s post at Politico. For every voice of reason from liberals, as shown in the first example, there are about two from birthers howling at the moon.
