Loonie duped Republicans into believing Obama is Muslim

[HAL 9000 96]

LINK

'Obama's a Muslim' rumor author exposed

by Frank James

So now we know the genesis of the false Obama-is-a-Muslim rumor.

According to the New York Times, Patient Zero in this particular epidemic which has virally spread around the nation thanks to the Internet is a fellow named Andy Martin, known for filing copious lawsuits that on occasion have contained very anti-Semitic language.

After reading the NYT story that places Martin at the starting point of the unfounded rumor (Obama is a Christian) you come away with the very strong impression that Martin is a man with some serious issues, to say the least.

As the NYT reports:

Until this month, the man who is widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign that still dogs Mr. Obama was a secondary character in news reports, with deep explorations of his background largely confined to liberal blogs.

But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.

An examination of legal documents and election filings, along with interviews with his acquaintances, revealed Mr. Martin, 62, to be a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims. He has left a trail of animosity -- some of it provoked by anti-Jewish comments -- among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over more than 30 years.

He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of "moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character."

There's more:

He prepared to run as a Democrat for Congress in Connecticut, where paperwork for one of his campaign committees listed as one purpose "to exterminate Jew power." He ran as a Republican for the Florida State Senate and the United States Senate in Illinois. When running for president in 1999, he aired a television advertisement in New Hampshire that accused George W. Bush of using cocaine.

In the 1990s, Mr. Martin was jailed in a case in Florida involving a physical altercation.

Then there's this passage which gets to when Martin started the rumor:

Theories about Mr. Obama's background have taken on a life of their own. But independent analysts seeking the origins of the cyberspace attacks wind up at Mr. Martin's first press release, posted on the Free Republic Web site in August 2004.

Its general outlines have turned up in a host of works that have expounded falsely on Mr. Obama's heritage or supposed attempts to conceal it, including "Obama Nation," the widely discredited best seller about Mr. Obama by Jerome R. Corsi. Mr. Corsi opens the book with a quote from Mr. Martin.

"What he's generating gets picked up in other places," said Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University who has investigated the e-mail campaign's circulation and origins, "and it's an example of how the Internet has given power to sources we would have never taken seriously at another point in time."

Here's more on Martin and anti-Semitism:

Yet in various court papers, Mr. Martin had impugned Jews.

A motion he filed in a 1983 bankruptcy case called the judge "a crooked, slimy Jew who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race."

In another motion, filed in 1983, Mr. Martin wrote, "I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did."

In an interview, Mr. Martin denied some statements against Jews attributed to him in court papers, blaming malicious judges for inserting them.

It's remarkable that the originator of the rumor that has hounded Obama throughout the presidential campaign has been narrowed down to onc person. The falsity seemed like one of those items that could have had dozens of authors.

As many of you already know, Sean Hannity gave Martin and his colorful fabrications major exposure last week when he had him on his show as part of a "documentary" on Obama's Chicago years.

Robert Gibbs, Obama's communications director, administered a memorable beatdown of Hannity for having Martin, who many people would consider a crackpot and with much justification, on his program. It's must-see TV if you haven't watched it already.

Here's a 2006 Chicago Tribune story on Martin with a few more details:

Perennial candidate back for another race

The self-styled consumer advocate has run unsuccessfully for office for more than 3 decades

Date: Friday, February 10, 2006

By John Chase and Rick Pearson, Tribune staff reporters

Dressed in a green sport coat, khakis and a beat-up pair of New Balance running shoes, Andy Martin stood on a downtown Chicago sidewalk recently for one of his numerous news conferences to deliver a message to the voters of Illinois.

"The bottom line is, the momentum has shifted," the 60-year-old Republican candidate for governor told a lone reporter. "There's an awareness statewide now that I'm a fully fledged player in this race."That's a view Martin has often espoused in more than three decades of unsuccessfully running for offices ranging from county clerk and mayor to legislator on to Congress and the presidency--sometimes as a Republican, other times as a Democrat--in Illinois, Florida and Connecticut.

Though his ads featuring "Stars and Stripes Forever" have aired on Chicago radio stations, political organizations, debate planners and the media usually shun Martin. More than just a perennial candidate, he bills himself as a self-styled consumer advocate willing to take on Microsoft, housing developers and other firms with legal action.

"I have 40 years of exceptional public service. Successful public service," Martin said in a recent letter addressed to the Tribune. "And true integrity fighting public corruption."

Yet the Illinois Supreme Court denied him a law license, saying he lacked the fitness to be an attorney. Federal courts have repeatedly sanctioned him for what judges have said is his filing of hundreds of largely meritless legal actions. He's had several stints in jail.

He has repeatedly refused to answer questions from the Tribune and has in the past unsuccessfully sued the newspaper for libel. On Thursday, during a telephone news conference, he threatened to sue the Tribune over a recent poll on candidates for governor that showed he had support from fewer than 1 percent of likely Republican voters.

Martin also has expressed anti-Semitic attitudes in the past. When he ran for Congress in Connecticut in 1986, the name of his congressional campaign committee included the phrase "to exterminate Jew power in America," Federal Election Commission records show.

In a 1983 personal bankruptcy case, he referred to a federal bankruptcy judge as a "crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race."

In a related court filing in the case, he also expressed sympathy to the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

"I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did, when Jew survivors are operating as a wolf pack to steal my property," Martin wrote in an April 21, 1983, personal bankruptcy proceeding.

In 1973, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to allow Martin admission to the bar. The court's decision noted that Martin, a University of Illinois law school graduate who was previously known by the name Anthony R. Martin-Trigona, had a Selective Service record that showed he had a "moderately-severe character defect manifested by well documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character."

Still, the court noted that "issues raised as to [Martin's] mental stability" did not need to be considered in light of other matters it cited in deciding that Martin lacked the qualities of "responsibility, candor, fairness, self-restraint, objectivity and respect for the judicial system" required for the administration of justice.

Among issues the high court cited in denying his law license were Martin's criticism of members of a bar review panel as "emotionally ill" and "scum," his filing of a petition asking that a parking violation be lifted because it was "entered by an insane judge" and his description of an attorney as "shaking and tottering and drooling like an idiot," according to court records.

A decade later, the federal court system began issuing sanctions against Martin for his filing of what one federal judge, Edward Weinfeld of New York, termed as "a substantial number of lawsuits of a vexatious, frivolous and scandalous nature." The courts eventually required him to obtain prior approval to file any legal action at any federal court. The restrictions require that judges, who are not identified to Martin, decide whether the filings have merit and should proceed.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted Martin's litigious conduct appeared to be an attempt to "harass persons who have unluckily crossed his path." The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago noted Martin's tendency "to exaggerate, to believe himself the victim of conspiracies where none exist, and to suspect without any reasonable basis that others are persecuting him."

Martin often touts his background as an assistant to the late U.S. Sen. Paul Douglas (D-Ill.). Martin told a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 1975 that his service was as a summer intern for Douglas in 1966 and that he received $152 in pay.

Martin is currently registered to vote in two locations, one in Chicago and another in Florida, according to an election official in Florida and records in Chicago. But those same sources show Martin has not cast a vote in Chicago since he registered in 2003 or in Florida since 1996.

Still, Martin has run or attempted to run for public offices in Illinois and Florida numerous times since 1996, including for the U.S. Senate in Florida in 1998 and 2004, the presidency in 2000 and Florida governor in 2002. In 1998, Martin was on the ballot in Florida and received 184,739 votes, or 33.6 percent, in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate. In 1996, he was the Republican nominee in Florida for a seat in the state Senate. He received 31,919 votes, or 27.4 percent of the vote.

In his current campaign, Martin has quoted from a 1978 Tribune editorial that called him "an absolutely brilliant campaigner" when he was running as a Democrat for U.S. Senate. But the rest of the editorial, which Martin does not quote, added that he "has no more business in the U.S. Senate than an elk has in a phone booth."

Martin has also had run-ins with the law. In 1980, he was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison after being convicted of mail fraud. The conviction was later overturned.

Federal Bureau of Prisons records show Martin has spent several stints in several federal prisons on issues related to contempt of court.

Back in Florida, Palm Beach County Court officials say an arrest warrant for him remains active. Officials with the Palm Beach clerk's office said the warrant is still outstanding for Martin for violation of probation, stemming from a 1996 criminal mischief case in which he damaged a video camera belonging to a local TV station covering his campaign for state Senate. A judge ordered Martin to spend several months in jail but a paperwork glitch resulted in Martin's release after only about one month. They say he still has several months left to serve.

[IAMX 3,055]

One thing to understand, more than the mere political divisiveness, is the profitability of political divisiveness.

It's rather painful to see the sort of sh!t that's passed around, because many aren't willing to do much questioning of what they read.

[Peikko 1,575]

What's stupid is that being a muslim is automatically something to be ashamed of.

Is it in fact illegal to be a muslim and the president of the US?

[IAMX 3,055]

What's stupid is that being a muslim is automatically something to be ashamed of.

Is it in fact illegal to be a muslim and the president of the US?

We're scurred of diffrnt people.

This is a nation of freedom, therefore Muslims or atheists or gays shouldn't ever be President. They know nothing about freedoms.

[Niels Bohr 72]

I love how many old people believes that MUSLIM is associated with being a terrorists. I listened to Radio shows with people calling in saying Obama is a terrorist because he's a MUSLIM. And, the reason why New Orleans and Texas suffered from these hurricanes are a result of GOD's wrath towards the US for supporting gays and lesbians. Ridiculous! Any rational person would not believe this.

He also said that, "If Obama is elected President, then God will destroy the US." The caller didn't identify himself. After his call in, there were waves of old people calling in believing this guy. ROFL. It's laughable, but, at the same time serious. It goes to show the morality with people.

[Cassie 8]

What's stupid is that being a muslim is automatically something to be ashamed of.

Is it in fact illegal to be a muslim and the president of the US?

I was told in another thread that we (being the US) are at war with the Muslims, so apparently it would be bad or something.

[Peikko 1,575]

However, it's not actually illegal? The president doesn't have to be white, male and christian?

Just checking...

Oh, we are at war with muslims now? I guess we should prepare for the labour camps (Second world war Japanese/German treatment style).

[Cassie 8]

However, it's not actually illegal? The president doesn't have to be white, male and christian?

Just checking...

Oh, we are at war with muslims now? I guess we should prepare for the labour camps (Second world war Japanese/German treatment style).

Apparently!

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...55997&st=30

[Peikko 1,575]

Oh, Mark. I don't respond to things like that from him as I figure it's as much #### stirring as anything.

That said, I am sure there are people who believe that, sadly.

[mud 0]

What's stupid is that being a muslim is automatically something to be ashamed of.

Is it in fact illegal to be a muslim and the president of the US?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[HAL 9000 96]

So does anyone see this as a case of the insane leading the blind?

[Peikko 1,575]

In terms of being in US politics, I think this does highlight the danger of allowing for 'religious' dogma to influence political thinking ( to this point it has always been 'christian dogma' which is of course acceptable because the dominant relgion is christian)

The US is supposed to be inclusive of all religious/non religious peoples so to be honest I personaly believe that overt reliance on religious rhetoric is quite simply an abuse of the system and people should strive to eliminate it. If that happened, then it really wouldn't matter what religion our politicians practiced at home.

Edited October 13, 2008 by Madame Cleo

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The US is supposed to be inclusive of all religious/non religious peoples so to be honest I personaly believe that overt reliance on religious rhetoric is quite simply an abuse of the system ...

I don't see how you reach that conclusion. Inclusion simply means that everyone is entitled to express their faith however they choose, including overtly if that's how they like it.

[IAMX 3,055]

The US is supposed to be inclusive of all religious/non religious peoples so to be honest I personaly believe that overt reliance on religious rhetoric is quite simply an abuse of the system ...

I don't see how you reach that conclusion. Inclusion simply means that everyone is entitled to express their faith however they choose, including overtly if that's how they like it.

It's not like he's stated how he'd use his power as the President relative to his religion, right?

[HAL 9000 96]

The US is supposed to be inclusive of all religious/non religious peoples so to be honest I personaly believe that overt reliance on religious rhetoric is quite simply an abuse of the system ...

I don't see how you reach that conclusion. Inclusion simply means that everyone is entitled to express their faith however they choose, including overtly if that's how they like it.

Thank goodness we are supposed to have separation of church and state as a doctrine limiting the imposition of faith over the population.