According to MSNBC, Obama was administered the oath of office again today, in an act that probably should be called the Andrew McCarthy Full Employment Act of 2009, as no doubt he will spend the next four years seeking to prove that Obama is not technically the President, just as he dedicated the previous few months to proving that Obama was not actually an American citizen.
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r€nato
Hey John-
I am still catching up with things here after recovering from a VERY intense 24 hours in DC.
A very belated and grateful thank you for the plug you gave me in a previous post.
I’ve only posted one of the non-cell-phone-photos from the event, more to come later tonight or possibly tomorrow.
Photo blog
MediaGlutton
And this one ended "…will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States (thbthth) and that’s the twuth!"
dmsilev
Does that mean that Obama can run in both 2012 and 2016?
And, on a completely different note, when will computer spell-check dictionaries stop flagging "Obama" as a typo?
-dms
JasonF
I think he ought to take the oath of office each and every day, just to remind those morons that he’s the president and there’s not a damned thing they can do about it.
demkat620
Have we hit peak wingnut yet?
r€nato
that will come just after his executive orders to mandate gay marriages to Muslims and raising the top income tax rate to 200%.
Krista
No.
I think wingnuttery is a fine example of the concept of infinity. It’s hard to imagine how they could become even more unhinged, yet you know that there really can’t be a limit to it either.
rob
Good lord- are we gonna have to go through this crap every freakin’ day??
John Cole
@demkat620: It is kind of amazing to think that of all the stupid things I have said on this website, the “peak wingnut” post might be the one with the most staying power and the one I come to regret the most.
calipygian
Orin Kerr:
Andy McCarthy, Rush, K-Lo and Company should have a good time in Gitmo. Rush even said that the detainees are treated fabulously.
And if we waterboard the wingnut out of them once and for all – hey, its just a frat prank, right?
Zuzu's Petals
The argument will be that every official act he took between the first and second oaths is open to challenge. And his taking the second oath just proves it.
Just wait.
r€nato
or, it’s like going for a swim.
Rush Limbaugh isn’t afraid to go for a swim, does he?
mellowjohn
bush twice took an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend" the constitution.
how’d that work out?
MikeJ
How long until they say he can’t run for reëlection in four years because today he started his second term?
r€nato
If Obama rolls back these powers, then he will be aiding the terra-ists.
If he doesn’t, that means he’s going to be a tyrant.
Heads they win, tails we lose. SSDD*
Note to wingnuts: Mocking the French is so 5 years ago. Also, they were right about Iraq.
Gee don’t come whining to me, maybe you should have considered the possibility that someday a Democrat might be the president, before endorsing Bush’s power grabs.
*same shit, different day
slag
Did Jeffrey Toobin really say: "He’s way President now"? Cuz that would be funny.
calipygian
Speaking of "peak wingnut"….
First the Freepers quote Pravda approvingly….But now Moe Lane-ski ALSO approvingly links to Pravda.
Pravda – a new super-giant field of wingnut, just being tapped.
demkat620
@John Cole:
Can we fuel our cars with that shit?
r€nato
I have a better idea. Chop them up for firewood and give them to the poor to heat their homes.
sus
Orly Taitz had filed a motion asking the Supreme Court Justices to recuse themselves from administering the Oath. Due to conflict of interest in her nutso Birther cases. So, if a Supreme Court Justice administered the oath, it’s still no good.
How long do you think before that Dentist/Realtor/Lawyer loses her license?
kay
The following is a statement from White House Counsel Greg Craig.
"We believe that the oath of office was administered effectively and that the President was sworn in appropriately yesterday. But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time."
demkat620
@calipygian:
WTF is Moe Lane smoking? Pravda? Pravda?
Do they ever read history? Jeebus, Pravda.
Mike
Actually, Moe Lane doesn’t quote Pravda approvingly; he quotes it to disagree with it.
The Grand Panjandrum
Wow. Turn on Olbermann and listen to this interview with the former NSA guy. Holy shit …
sus
MSNBC is on a higher tier of my cable that I don’t care to pay for. I can get Fox, but not MSNBC. I gotta watch Maddow via podcasts and youtube clips.
What’s the NSA guy saying?
Lihtox
He isn’t the first President to take the oath of office twice for the same term:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pihtml/pioaths.html
Some, for instance (including Eisenhower and Reagan) took the oath privately when Inauguration Day fell on a Sunday, and then publicly the next day when the Inauguration was celebrated.
I like the idea of a daily renewal of the Oath– the former President could have used a daily smack in the head reminder as to his proper duties (not that it would have helped).
FYI. :)
Ed Marshall
I can’t. I pitched the TV in the trash about half a year ago. I’ve been waiting for this though, the rumor mill has always been that there was some deep ass shit to be dished out of NSA after the inauguration.
Ecks
Back when they were still waterboarding I always thought that someone should get a lovely nice corporate looking one (perhaps rosewood inlaid with ash or something) and take it to the steps of the capital building with a media posse in tow, right as the guvmint offices were letting out.
You could stand there with a sign and a bullhorn offering to waterboard anyone who would sign a waver so they could PROVE with their raw manly example that it wasn’t torture, and really wasn’t such a big deal at all.
"Only two minutes!" you could shout through the bullhorn. "Go just a hundred and twenty short seconds, and prove to the world how lightly the terrorists are getting off! How pleased will your president be with you when, you, personally vindicate him? Come on, for your country! Won’t somebody show the libruls up here."
Oh the taunting, it would be almost as delicious as getting to torture a grade A wingnut if someone agreed…
John Cole
Anymore when I read Red State and the Corner, I think I am the easy mark in an elaborate joke. Any day now I expect Andy Kaufman to announce he isn’t actually dead and has, in fact, spent the last few years as a right-wing blogger.
Mnemosyne
I hope so, because Jeffrey Toobin is the only decent pundit out there. He’s one of the few who will tell the other guys that they’re talking crap. When Palin was running, I thought the poor guy’s eyes were going to end up permanently rolled back in his head.
Mnemosyne
Christopher Hitchens did agree to be waterboarded and, not surprisingly, now agrees that it’s torture.
At least he had the balls to do it.
andy
I realize this is a preemptive strike against the far-right yahoos who would claim the mix-up invalidated his oath, but why is it these same yahoos don’t have a problem when Presidents-elect tack on the God bit to the end?
(Rhetorical question)
Joshua Norton
Not even close. In today’s SF Chronicle there was a letter from some 28%’er bemoaning that we elected a person who thinks there are 57 states. That’s going to make the rounds just as sure as the "Al Gore invented the internet" meme did.
These people have all the sincerity and credibility of professional wrestlers talking smack to each other.
The Grand Panjandrum
This guy was part of a program in the NSA that singled out certain journalists and news organizations to monitor ALL communications by those individuals. All of them. I’ll have to watch to interview again after it’s posted to the Countdown website.
Bostondreams
So, anyone seen Ace of Spades lately? So very charming and classy. And the comments are lovely. Classics like this one:
"The time for being [too] nice in the face of the destruction of America is over.We now really have our own hitler and you want to be nice to him?"
Good to see these conservatives are living down to their image. What losers. Hate to think that as someone who generally leans somewhat libertarian, I could be associated anywhere with them. They deserve mockery.
(h/t Sadly, No)
The Grand Panjandrum
@Joshua Norton:
The distinction, of course, being that the wrestlers know they are just talking trash and providing entertainment to people who only have one or two teeth in the entire extended family.
Andrew
I think this means that Obama is twice as powerful now. By Cheney rules, the federal government now has 5 branches: The executive, the legislature, the judicial, the office of the vice president, and the executive.
Joshua Norton
The technical term is Narcissistic Rage. Just another symptom of the sociopathology required to be a modern wingnut.
Andrew
As for the fuckwits at Ass of Spades, I hope that thread has been forwarded to the Secret Service.
calipygian
Wingnut heads continue to explode at Malkin’s house, as the ACLU sues a publically funded madrassa.
Her moronic commenters don’t know who to root for.
SGEW
I’ve been saying this for years now, but you know that.
Comrade Jake
There’s definitely some consolation is being a spectator for the wingnut. I remember when Bush was elected in 2004, waking up and just struggling to wrap my mind around how millions of people could be so stupid.
Given what some of these numbnuts wrote about Obama during the election, I can’t help but smile thinking about what they’re going through these days.
The Grand Panjandrum
Here is a link to the NSA whistleblower video.
sus
Please, Conrade. I’m pretty sure none of us were talking about militias. Some of those blogs are truly frightening. Just today on RosettaSister’s blog a woman comments that her husband went next door to see the neighbors gun collection:
j.b. Says:
January 22, 2009 at 1:27 am
Hubby’s back, guy has a grenade launcher, dummy grenades, night vision scope and “more AK’s than a Central America Armies!”
I then reply, “Costa Rica has NO army”. (totally irrelevent, but it does enhance his point, I guess.)
He said, “We didn’t even get to the pistols…….the whole time I was there we were looking at his (30 some odd) rifles.”
===============
and, these folks spew hate against Obama like you wouldn’t believe. And praise Bush. Common comment over there is "lock & load" and "keep the powder dry".
And, some of the religious blogs are even worse. Co-Paster Stucky said he hopes Obama dies soon.
?
jenniebee
@calipygian: thanks for that link, calipygian. Now every time I think that lefties are prone to wild conspiracy theories, I’ll think of that and remember that it isn’t confined to just one side of the aisle.
Now I just need to find a hippie with a theory/BDS as crazified as those Freepers… oh, Jane Hamshers of the Left, where art thou in my time of need?
Conservatively Liberal
Yes, this has been a very entertaining time for those of us who enjoy popped wingnut. We are just getting started on eight years of popping wingnuts so there is a lot more to go!
"Peak Wingnut", that is one line that is going down in infamy John…lol! Too bad there isn’t a way to convert wingnut to oil, our energy (and wingnut) problems would be solved forever.
sgwhiteinfla
John Cole
This is totally off topic but you gotta see this pet pick from Instaputz. I am pretty sure you could do something with it.
http://instaputz.blogspot.com/2009/01/dick-blofeld.html
TenguPhule
Obama to close Gitmo.
Suck on that, Talkleft.
TenguPhule
Buy stock in Hellfire missile providers. They’re going to be in high demand very soon.
MikeJ
They exist, no doubt about it, but they are pretty much just the fringes of the left. Insanity is a mainstream Republican ideal (cf Chris Wallace on the inauguration).
CT
Question. Of the commentators at citizenwells.wordpress.com, how many are legit PUMAtroopers, and how many are spoofs? Check this out:
Please be a spoof.
Brick Oven Bill
People keep saying that the Iraq war is bankrupting America. This really isn’t true. The Iraq war costs somewhere around $100 billion per year. The ~$8.5 trillion ‘bailout’ spent-printed-created in the last few months is the equivalent of 85 years of fighting.
We spend 20 times as much each year on social and entitlement programs, and the looming entitlement bubble, at ~$60 trillion, is six centuries worth of fighting. To me it looks like the currency might collapse. I am not advocating anything, but the conspiracy-theory side of me thinks that what we are witnessing may be somehow engineered. I don’t like what I see in Geithner’s eyes.
I can’t figure out how much money the government has spent-printed-created because it stopped tracking the M3 number in March 2006, two months before Paulson moved in, for reasons that make no sense to me.
If the currency collapses, the era in which we are now living might be referred to as the PreWingNut era (PWN). People understand birth certificates and bank accounts. And, unfortunately, it would look bad at this point to bring back a better-looking one. Only one try with birth certificates.
TenguPhule
Wrong.
Try again.
TenguPhule
Just when you think Irony can’t be violated any more.
burnspbesq
@calipygian:
Just wait, the entire agenda at the next national convention of the Federalist Society will be about limitations on Presidential power.
Tar and feather the lot of them, an ride them out of town on a rail.
Brick Oven Bill
The Iraq spending is here TenguPhule. There is nothing to advocate because there is nothing that we can do except keep our families as independent as possible. We keep some food, cash, and water around the house. Stop projecting.
This is not a Democrat-Republican thing. This is fiscal reality. It cannot be denied.
oh really
Yeah, but what dedicated wingnut will believe that?
Where’s the video? How do we know it was really Obama and Roberts and not a couple of actors? Where’s the proof?
Since the Constitution does not explicitly say that the oath may be administered twice, I’d say it’s obviously unconstitutional. The average strict constructionist knows that you get one shot at it. Flub and you’re out.
President Joe Biden. Let the impeachment hearings begin.
TenguPhule
That’s only the supplemental bills for military operations.
A.k.a. the tip of the iceberg.
Comrade Darkness
There were six other words out of place. It ended with "so help me flying spaghetti monster".
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
You all know Obama didn’t have his hand on a bible when he was re-sworn in.
That’s a wingnut fucking dream right there!!!
CT
Did he use Lincoln’s Koran for the second go-around?
gopher2b
no doubt he used the koran in this one
Mnemosyne
I think you’re having a wee bit of numbers trouble, sweetheart, given that the entire US budget for fiscal year 2008 was $2 trillion. I’m pretty sure we didn’t somehow give the banks 4 times the entire budget for the whole country.
The Moar You Know
@r€nato: Whales are an internationally protected species, so no.
Mazacote Yorquest
I think we may see the Wingnut Singularity, where infinite Obama theories are generated in an infinitely brief moment.
Brick Oven Bill
Which, if I understand the theory correctly, is how wars are supposed to be funded TenguPhule. I believe that this is how the Vietnam War funding was cut, but don’t know the details. I am sure you are right that there is budget fudging, so perhaps the looming entitlement bubble only equates to five centuries of fighting.
If OPEC decided to only accept gold for its oil, our little experiment might just be in big trouble quick. The average American has not been prepared for this. This one has me kind of freaked out, at the moment.
sus
But, Rumsfield admitted to Unaccounted $2.3 Trillion, just lost track of it, on September 10, 2001. I think the figure went up later. But, of course the world changed the next day. Google it.
Brick Oven Bill
Mnemosyne; The balance was the Federal Reserve ‘lending’ to banks, and loan ‘guarantees’ on bad assets. I do not believe that the fact that ‘M3’ went away in 2006 is a coincidence. We used to track the money supply. I heard from an honorable source that it has grown 70% this year.
This was from last July, months before we ever heard about ‘bailouts’.
Brick Oven Bill
Second try.
Johnny Pez
The thing is, BrickO, even if you succeed, you fail.
Brick Oven Bill
400 years of Oil Shale Johnny, my friend. Energy is power. Power is energy. America has a bright future. The Constitution is a good document and we should be happy about having it. We are very fortunate.
Freedom is a very powerful, and free men have a pretty good track record.
Steeplejack
@John Cole
Cut yourself some slack, dude. That is one of the posts that first brought me here, where I have found a happy (lurking) home.
Moby Dick
You dare to slur us, the rulers of the deep, by calling that land slug of your species a whale?! I am quite happy to say that he is all yours and you are welcome to him/it/whatever.
Oh, and quit pissing, shitting and dumping your garbage in our air. Would you like it if I could come and take a dump on your house? I sure wish I could!
TenguPhule
And you’d be wrong again.
This is how they’ve been keeping it off the official books.
Yes, and then their own citizens would burn their rulers alive as their own domestic economies crash.
Everyone has a grip on the other’s balls. And all of them are not afraid to squeeze back if the hand holds too tightly.
Except for the part about getting it out. And the part where the oil is not as good as Sweet Mideast Light. And the lack of nationalization to prevent that oil from being sold to the highest bidder.
So yeah.
Brick Oven Bill
My communications here have been lacking. Kerogen is virgin fuel. You can make whatever you want out of it. Kerogen is a big molecule. Heat breaks it down into anything, from heating oil to natural gas. It is stored solar energy. All about technique, technique, techique! 90% is on public lands.
There is no reason whatsoever for us to be in the Middle East, where, by the way, Citizens have no political power whatsoever. They would simply be deprived of water. Google “Great Purge”.
If you grow potatoes, you can remove the grip. Free the balls. And there is nothing better than young, August potatoes, sautéed with a little bit of butter.
AnneLaurie
Afterwards, we can recycle the old joke about the Texan too tall for a coffin, and bury them in shoeboxes.
Because if you waterboard the wingnut out of, ferinstance, David Vitter, the "human" portion of the remains will be no larger than your average Ken doll.
robertdsc
Got any peer-reviewed studies to back that up?
Moby Dick
Kerogen is a "virgin fuel"?
rofl, "virgin fuel". Good one. Nuthin like some cherry fuel and a brick oven to process it.
Xenos
How about something with some protein in it, or a decent amount of vitamins? Potatoes… obviously you are not Irish.
Instead of your isolationist and survivalist fantasies, how about interdependence based on mutual respect, law, tolerance, husbandry of land and animals, and other well established social principles?
Naaaah… way too much work, that. Can’t let the hippies, nerds, and goo-goos run things!
harlana pepper
You left out mandated abortions for all white peoples.
harlana pepper
Be patient and try not to confuse them with too much information at one time. For one, as we know, irony is lost on this group. They will need to process this in small doses lest their teeny wingnut brains start smokin’ and asplode like one of those outmatched super-godcomputers on an old Star Trek episode.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@oh really: Exactly.
But you know what? Fuck ’em. Let them sit on their potties and scream about "Vault Copy" birth certificates, the whitey tape and the oath of office. It’ll keep them out of way while the rest of us try to actually fix shit.
And provide comedic relief.
robertdsc
Barack said it best during the campaign:
"It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant!"
True that, Mr. President.
mapaghimagsik
Jeebus, when did commenting here start to feel like TimeCube?
We spend more on Military spending — not counting the cost for specific conflicts than the other top 10-14 countries combined.
But its the *entitlements* that are hurting the economy.
I guess it makes a weird amount of sense. Why should I feed the poor when I can bomb them?
MikeJ
You underestimate. We spend more than everybody on else earth combined. Granted, once you get out of the top 10 the spending doesn’t contribute much to catching the colossus.
Faux News
I would say your communications here have been jejune rather than merely "lacking".
BOB, I wish you would return to your hero worship of "Joe the plumber". I enjoy those posts.
El Cruzado
I’ll have to paraphrase Einstein here: "There’s only two things that are infinite, the Universe and Wingnut. And I’m not so sure about the Universe…"
Poopyman
Andrew McCarthy?
Isn’t he the son of Charlie?
jukeboxgrad
Roberts made another small error that no one seems to have noticed. He didn’t say "do."
Ted
Take the test.
FIRST QUESTION: Who IS the actual and lawful 44th President of the USA?
ANSWER: Joe Biden
Biden was initially the Acting President for at least 5 minutes under either the Constitution’s Article 2 or the Constitution’s 20th Amendment, from 12:00 Noon 1/20/09, having already taken his Oath of Office and before Obama completed his ‘oath’ at approximately 12:05 PM, 1/20/09. Under the 20th Amendment if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, or alternatively under Article 2 if the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term, being 12:00 Noon 1/20/09, which ability and/or qualification includes that he take the Article 2 oath “before he enter on the execution of his office,” then either the Presidency shall devolve on the Vice President under Article 2 or the Vice President shall act as President under the 20th Amendment. (The importance of the oath in ‘commencing’ an ‘Obama Presidency’ — rather than merely the 1/20/09 Noon time — is confirmed by the re-take of the ‘oath’ by Obama at the White House on 1/21/09 after the first ‘oath’ was NOT administered by Justice Roberts NOR recited by Obama in the words as required under Article 2.)
This is significant because at such time that the Supreme Court finally rules on the merits on Obama’s disqualification as not being an Article 2 “natural born citizen” (clearly he is NOT), Biden’s automatic status (without needing to take a separate Presidential Oath) of being President would be predicated upon four different bases: First, having been Vice President under Article 2; second, having been Vice President-elect under the 20th Amendment; third, having been actual President in the hiatus before Obama took the ‘oath(s)’; and fourth, retroactively deemed President during the full period of the Obama usurpation so that the acts of the Federal Government under the usurpation can be deemed authorized and/or ratified by Biden’s legitimacy.
SECOND QUESTION: Who will be the 45th President?
ANSWER: Hillary Clinton
One must assume that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been aware of all of the above. Biden’s wife recently “let the cat out of the bag” on the Oprah Show that both Biden and Hillary had considered alternatively Veep or Secretary of State, in either case, setting up Hillary to be President on a vote of the Democratic Congress if need be.
THIRD QUESTION: Is Obama an unwitting victim of this troika or a knowing participant?
ANSWER: Yet undetermined.