By B. Hutson

Did you think the birther issue had been put to rest? Why, of course not! Author Jerome Corsi intends to pick up where Donald Trump left off with his new book, “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President.” Released this week, Corsi claims that he found flaws in Obama’s long form certificate.

Well, this time, Obama and his reelection team are giving Corsi, and anyone else who continues to doubt the legitimacy of his birth certificate, the invisible finger by using the bither nonsense to their advantage—their monetary advantage to be more exact. The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that the Obama 2012 team is selling mugs and t-shirts with the president’s long form birth certificate.

In an e-mail to the Times Wednesday morning, Obama 2012 deputy campaign manager Julianna Smoot said, “There’s really no way to make this stuff completely go away. The only thing we can do is laugh at it—and make sure as many other people as possible are in on the joke.”

For folks who contribute at least $15 to the campaign, they will receive a “limited edition” Obama birth certificate mug. One side of the mug has the long form certificate, while the other side has a picture of Obama with the words, “Made in the USA.” For those who donate $30, they can look forward to a t-shirt.

Since last week when Obama announced that the world’s public enemy number one had been killed, close friends and family have been asking me all sorts of questions about the mission.

They know I read a lot, and subsequently post a lot of what I read on various social networking sites. They also know that I usually have an opinion about things. However, I have been hesitant about discussing the matter too much out of sheer exhaustion of having fruitless debates with folks, which will not change the outcome that Bin Laden is literally swimming with the fishes.  But I do tell them that while I believe he is dead, I do have questions about the official story.  Of course, the usual response that follows is a smirk and another question,  ”But why would they [the Obama Administration] lie?”

I don’t know why or if they did.  But I do know that the official story has inconsistencies big enough to drive a truck through. For instance, the first official report was that Osama lived in a multi-million dollar mansion with no electricity, Internet or telephone. There was a firefight and Osama went down in a blaze of glory. Not only did he hide behind a woman, but he used her as a human shield, causing her death also.

But after that was debunked, the second version went something like this: Osama lived in a relatively expensive house and he might have had electricity. There was a firefight, but Osama wasn’t armed. However, he did resist capture. The lady in question wasn’t actually killed; she was injured when a stray bullet hit her in the leg.

There is no visible proof of either story other than the words of our administration, which seems to change stream every time a new hole is punched. The quick sea burial, the decision to kill probably one of the biggest sources of intelligence in the war on terror and the 20-25 minute gap in the video stream during which Obama and his staff missed important parts of the operation, all linger as unanswered questions. Yet print and TV media outlets have only seemed to embrace these talking points without critical analysis.

But I, and others like me, can’t risk disparaging the official story without being called extremist nutcases. Why?

Well, thanks to the turn of events only days before the “We Got Him” speech, Obama was in a position to banish any and all criticisms placed upon him.  One of the greatest moves of his political campaign was to release the birth certificate, thwarting not only the ongoing speculation about his citizenship, but also setting the stage for the world to laugh and mock those who did not believe the president. Just a week later, many of the same folks who once joined the merciless ridicule of the Birthers now find themselves wearing a label of their own – the Deathers.

Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war activist whose Army specialist son was killed in Iraq, is one of those folks who cannot shake off the Deather label. In a piece called “I’m Not the Deather,” she writes, ” I guess this slur is a riff on the ‘Birther’ movement that claims that the current POTUS was not born in the US and therefore is not qualified to be in office—I think the Birther movement is a ruse and distraction from the real issues, as is OBL’s latest death is.”

I believe that one of the major issues is that for a long time, the government and the mass media have intentionally been misleading the public for various purposes, including war. Bush claimed that Saddam had WMD while Colin Powell sold the war on claims of yellow cake—neither of which was true. Due to his refusal to release any evidence that Osama is dead, President Obama is not only allowing a great story to amplify into a shroud of mystery, but he is also missing an opportunity to restore a measure of believability and trust in the government, which was lost over the last decade.

The Obama Administration is standing firm by their decision not to release pictures or any other evidence to support their claims. This decision appears to sit well with a vast majority of people, including a number of democrats who have used terms like “unpatriotic” and Bin Laden “sympathizers” to describe so-called Deathers. Sound familiar? It’s the same rhetoric that was vocalized by the republicans under the Bush regime.

Charing Ball is the author of the blog People, Places & Things.

(Huffington Post) — Donald Trump’s vehement questioning regarding President Obama’s place of birth has provoked charges of racism, with a number of public figures from Whoopi Goldberg to Jesse Jackson accusing the real estate magnate of employing crude and unfair stereotypes. The chorus has grown so intense that Trump this week felt compelled to declare otherwise, telling TMZ.com: “I am the last person that such a thing should be said about.”

But for Trump, allegations of racism amount to recurring themes in his larger-than-life career. Two weeks ago, when he was asked during a radio interview about whether or not he is supported by African-Americans, he sparked another firestorm when he blurted: “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” Trump’s comments were “highly offensive,” Walter Fields, former head of NAACP New Jersey, told Capital New York.

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(AP) — Shortly after President Barack Obama declared himself an American-born citizen with papers to prove it, Baratunde Thurston declared himself a disgusted black man.  ”I find it hard to summarize in mere words the amount of pain and rage this incident has caused,” Thurston said. ”This” would be the nation’s first black president standing in the White House, blue power suit and all, going on TV to debunk, in more detail than before, the persistent, he-ain’t-really-an-American rumors fanned anew by Donald Trump, the developer and might-be presidential candidate.  Many African-Americans responded to Wednesday’s scene with a large sigh. The rumors and the controversy had a particular, troubling resonance for them: They’ve seen, heard, lived, the legitimacy of black people being called into question so many times before that, they said, they weren’t shocked to see it happen to Obama over something as simple as a birth certificate.  But they were sad about it, too, seeing what they felt was a high-level manifestation of the idea that when a black person accomplishes something great there must be something wrong.

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The other day, I was browsing the stream of morning news, when I came upon this week’s new headline story: “White House Releases President Obama’s Birth Certificate.” And though I was a bit disappointed that the media decided to take a break from its relentless blow by blow coverage of the impending nuptials between Prince William and Kate Middleton, I must admit that was a bit relieved to see this whole birth certificate issue now come to an end. Grant it, the entire issue of Obama’s place of birth has made for great politics and great T.V., but sadly, it also has highlighted that idiocy and racism are alive and well in this great country of ours.

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