On 4/19/2014 10:15 PM, Brian Hellman wrote:
> I’ve had this post in draft for MONTHS. I’ve hesitated to
> publish this because of the gravity of what is being asserted,
> and the uncertainty of the evidence to support the assertion.
>
> The startling assertion is that the current First Lady of the
> United States of America, known as Michelle Robinson Obama, is a
> biological male posing as a woman.
>
> That anyone would make such an assertion is a mark of how much
> distrust and suspicion the Obamas have engendered, due entirely
> to Barack’s secretiveness concerning his Selective Service
> registration, school records (including even his kindergarten
> record!), and medical records; his refusal to explain why his
> Social Security number has a Connecticut prefix; and his
> outright deception about his birth certificate, an image of
> which he made public on April 27, 2011, but which forensic
> experts have determined to be a fake. [snip]
All these lies are still bouncing around in the in the Regressive Echo
Chamber, but that "Michelle is a man" is a new one, AFAIK.
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/obamas-sealed-records/
FULL ANSWER
This is an example of mostly old baloney in a new casing. It mainly
recycles years-old falsehoods and insinuations, most of which we covered
long ago, in connection with an earlier viral email.
But with President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign heating up, this
new graphic has appeared on countless anti-Obama websites and in viral
emails like the one we’ve reprinted here. Very little that it contains
is new, and the old falsehoods have not improved with age.
Nothing ‘Sealed’
The idea that any Obama record is “sealed” is a falsehood, to start. The
word “sealed” when applied to documents ordinarily refers to records
that would normally be public, but that a judge has ruled cannot be
released without the court’s permission. Common examples of truly
“sealed” documents include records of crimes committed as a juvenile or
records of adoptions. None of the claims in this message refers to
records actually “sealed” in that usual sense.
In some cases, the records this screed claims are “sealed” are actually
public, and open for anyone to see. Other supposedly “sealed” records
are normally private documents that Obama hasn’t released — and that
other presidential candidates haven’t released either.
So as with earlier versions, this is little more than an attempt to
raise suspicions by asking for records that aren’t ordinarily made
public, without any evidence that those records contain anything
derogatory. We’ll take the claims and questions in the order they appear.
Claims #1, 2 and 4, college records. Obama’s college records are not
“sealed” by a court order, as this graphic would have you believe. It
would be illegal under federal law (the Family Educational Rights and
Privacy Act of 1974) for Occidental, Columbia or Harvard Law School to
give any former student’s records to reporters or members of the public
without that person’s specific, written permission. Obama hasn’t
released them, but neither have other presidential candidates released
their college records. George W. Bush’s grades at Yale eventually became
public, but only because somebody leaked them to the New Yorker
magazine. Bush himself refused to release them, according to a 1999
profile in the Washington Post.
Claim #3, thesis paper. Obama did write a paper on nuclear disarmament
for an honors course in American foreign policy during his senior year,
but it wasn’t the sort of “thesis” that some colleges require for
graduation and keep on file in their libraries, like those that Hillary
Clinton and Michelle Obama released. During the 2008 campaign, reporters
were told that Columbia had not retained a copy of Obama’s 1983 paper,
and that Obama didn’t have a copy, either. NBC News contacted his former
professor, Michael Baron, who said he looked for his copy but couldn’t
find it, and thought he probably tossed it out eight years earlier in a
move.
NBC quoted Baron as saying the paper likely would have disappointed
Obama’s critics. “The course was not a polemical course, it was a course
in decision making and how decisions got made,” Baron told NBC. “None of
the papers in the class were controversial.”
Claim #5, Selective Service registration. Obama’s Selective Service
registration is public. A copy has been posted publicly, and the
Selective Service confirmed that Obama registered for the draft on Sept.
4, 1980, and was given registration number 61-1125539-1.
Worth noting is that nobody in the U.S. has been drafted for military
service since 1972, the year Obama turned 11. Obama, like other young
men turning age 18 since then, was required to register on a standby
basis, in case Congress ever resumes an active military draft. Failure
to register is technically a crime, and disqualifies a man for federal
student aid or from holding certain federal jobs.
Claim #6, medical records. During the 2008 campaign, Obama released
summary medical information from his personal physician, who pronounced
him to be in “excellent health” with routine test results for such
things as cholesterol all within normal levels. (McCain, who is a cancer
survivor and was 71 at the time, let reporters see his records for three
hours to show he was cancer-free.)
Since taking office, Obama has followed the practice of earlier
presidents. He released results of his first “periodic” physical exam on
Feb. 28, 2010. Results of his second “periodic” exam were released Oct.
31, 2011. His physician described him as being “in excellent health and
‘fit for duty.’”
Claims #7 and 8, Illinois state Senate records. Obama’s voting record in
the Illinois state Senate is a matter of public record, and about as far
from being “sealed” as one can imagine. Reporters extensively went over
his votes in 2008. Transcripts of Senate debates in which Obama took
part while in office (1997 – 2004) can even be found online, at the
website of the Illinois General Assembly.
Obama’s personal appointment calendar as a state senator may still be
private — if it still exists — but we’ve seen nothing to suggest that
would add much to what is already public. As president, Obama has
released records of visitors to the White House (2.4 million so far).
There are some exceptions. Personal information about visitors, such as
Social Security numbers are not released. And there’s an exemption for
“particularly sensitive” information, which might include a visit by a
potential Supreme Court nominee, for example. But that’s still more
disclosure than any previous president has made, by far.
Claim #9, law firm clients. It’s true that Obama has not released a list
of the 30 or so clients for whom he worked personally while he was a
lawyer with the firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallard in Illinois.
He did routinely disclose the law firm’s entire client list while he was
in the state Senate, however. And his campaign confirmed in 2008 several
specific clients that Obama represented personally, when reporters asked
about them. For example, he once represented the liberal group ACORN in
a 1995 lawsuit against the state of Illinois, to make voter registration
easier.
Claims #10 and 11, birth certificates. The claim that Obama’s birth
certificate is “sealed” is pure nonsense. Copies of both the so-called
“short” and “long” certificates have been released, and state officials
in Hawaii have said repeatedly that Obama was born there in 1961 and is
a “natural born American citizen.”
Claim #12, baptism record. If a paper record exists (and we’ve seen no
evidence that it does), it would most likely show only what numerous,
undisputed news accounts have stated: Obama was baptized in 1988 in Rev.
Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama was
often seen in attendance at Wright’s church in the 20 years that
followed. He was married there, and his two daughters were baptized there.
He remained a member even after some of Wright’s controversial sermons
were given national attention in early 2008. When Obama reluctantly
severed ties with Wright after weeks of controversy, it was a major news
event. Obama and his family now attend St. John’s Episcopal Church, near
the White House, though not on a regular basis.
Claim #13: Michelle Obama’s law license. It’s simply not true that the
first lady “can no longer practice law as an attorney.” She could resume
the practice of law any time she chooses. Both the president and his
wife have voluntarily inactivated their Illinois law licenses, thereby
avoiding a requirement to take continuing education classes and pay
hundreds of dollars in annual fees, which is common for lawyers no
longer actively practicing.
Claim #14, first ladies’ assistants. It’s true that the first lady has
more than 20 on her staff, but that’s roughly the same as other recent
first ladies. The claim that “other first ladies had only one” might
conceivably be true of Martha Washington or Dolley Madison, but it’s
certainly not true of Laura Bush or Hillary Clinton. Bush had at least
18 that we could count, and probably more with job titles that didn’t
make the link clear. The White House has said Michelle Obama’s staff is
the same size as Laura Bush’s was.
Claim #15, foreign student aid. The claim that Obama got “foreign
student aid” is untrue. That wild falsehood began as an absurd April
Fools’ Day hoax in 2009, which we quickly exposed.
Claim #16, Obama’s passport. There’s no reason to think Obama used
anything but the then-current version of his U.S. passport when he
traveled to Pakistan as a student in 1981. Some who questioned Obama’s
birthplace made baseless claims that Pakistan had banned U.S. citizens
from visiting in 1981, and speculated that he must have used an
Indonesian passport. But they were quite wrong. There was no such travel
ban. In fact, the New York Times published a travel piece that year
describing the author’s own visit to Lahore, and the U.S. consul later
wrote a letter to the Times saying he would “welcome an influx of
Americans” and giving advice on how to make the journey.
Other Claims
Besides the numbered claims, the graphic also states that Obama has been
endorsed by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). It’s true that the
Communist Party USA supports Obama. It claims to have about 2,000
members. Obama didn’t seek the CPUSA endorsement, nor has he endorsed
that group.
The graphic also attributes three quotes to Obama, all of which are
commonly offered on conservative websites. All the quotes are accurate.
Here’s the background:
Obama appeared at the Service Employees International Union Sept. 17,
2007, to seek the union’s endorsement for the Democratic nomination, and
he said, “your agenda has been my agenda in the United States Senate.”
(The words appear at about 3 minutes and 15 seconds into this video.)
And the SEIU eventually endorsed Obama, but not until February 2008,
helping him wrap up the nomination battle against Hillary Clinton. The
union has endorsed him again for reelection.
At the 2008 National Council of La Raza annual meeting in San Diego,
Calif., on July 13, 2008, Obama concluded his remarks by saying, “And
together, we won’t just win an election – we will transform this nation.
Thank you, and God bless you.”
And speaking to the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle on
Jan. 17, 2008, Obama said electricity costs would “necessarily
skyrocket” as a result of capping carbon emissions. However, the
cap-and-trade legislation he endorsed provided allowances intended to
protect consumers from higher bills.
In summary, there are bits here that are true. But most is wrong or
misleading, and overall the graphic falls far short of getting our seal
of approval for accuracy. Call it “unsealed.”
– Brooks Jackson
--
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in
moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification
for selfishness.” - John Kenneth Galbraith