Posts tagged ‘occidental’
It looks journalistic with all that fancy fonting, but the DelMarVa Observer apparently doesn’t take the trouble to check newsbanks or even Google before submitting “news stories” from the “AP” that are actually hoax e-mails.
February 5, 2012:
Congratulations, DelMarVa Observer, you’re the latest venue to fall into the role of hoaxer’s chump.
February 5, 2012 at 8:38 pm
It’s been three years since someone issued a hoax e-mail that claimed to be an AP article breaking the “news” that Barack Obama had been exposed as a secret foreigner whose name was really “Barry Soetoro”:
“AP – WASHINGTON D.C. –
In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group “Americans for Freedom of Information” has Released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College … Released today, the transcript school indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship.”
Just as quickly as the e-mail started making the rounds, it was quickly and repeatedly debunked. There is no such article in the AP archives, and there is no released Occidental transcript. They can’t be documented, meaning that there is no support for the claims of the hoax “article.”
But that isn’t stopping the adherents to the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory. Despite clear and readily available documentation that this message is a hoax (and a three year old one at that) people continue to spread it as if it were real, still-“breaking” news.
Here’s another of the groups to do so recently: Miami County Liberty of Miami County, Ohio…
It’s been nearly two months since the hoax posting at Miami County Liberty, and nobody’s bothered to check facts on the story. It’s just another “fact” being added to the pile of documents which together in their sheer volume are being counted as proof of a problem that does not exist.
January 29, 2012 at 1:38 pm
Paul Wilson explains at his Black Hole Next Door blog that he became a conservative after a neighbor borrowed some stuff of his and then had the gall to die. He also is the latest to pass on the untrue “information” on two different websites that President Barack Obama registered as a foreign student at Occidental College. The claim was debunked well over a year ago, as anyone making a simple search will find out. This alone makes Paul Wilson our Chump of the Day.
But wait, there’s more! Mr. Wilson earns our special Certificate of Unmitigated Gall for adding the following prelude to the top of the canned cut-and-paste hoax job:
This information from Occidental College was released TODAY, May 4, 2010. I checked with Snopes and it IS true. He got financial aid as a foreign student. The request for his transcript was released in compliance with an order from the Superior Court of the State of California.
You know that’s not true, right? A simple actual check of Snopes will show the opposite to be the case. But this message isn’t meant for people like you and me who actually check facts, require evidence and live in the Reality-Based Community. The message is meant for chumps.
Present ARMS! All SALUTE! Paul Wilson, Chump of the Day, with CERTIFICATE!
YAH!
June 8, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Le eye roll. Le sigh. (We at the non-existent Americans for Freedom of Information, being traitorous kissers of Saddam Hussein’s corpse, hold dual French and American citizenship.)
Q: When will the hoax “AP article” — falsely asserting the release of an Occidental College transcript establishing Barack Obama’s Indonesian citizenship — stop making the rounds?
A: When people start to value empirical reality more than their need to hate the President.
Today’s Chump of the Day, joszs, posts the “breaking news” that’s over a year old. His title? “Odumba Goes to Court.”
Careful, joszs. You know what they say about rubber and glue.
May 17, 2010 at 6:50 am
We didn’t come up with the utterly untrue, false, made-up hoax proclaiming that Barack Obama somehow registered at Occidental College as “Barry Soetoro” with an Indonesian passport. We at Americans for Freedom of Information simply could not have. After all, we don’t exist as an organization. It’s very difficult for fictitious beings to impact the real. But we can watch, and we do watch with amusement from the plane of non-existence as America’s Best Christian, John Preiss, shouts “LET OTHER FOLKS KNOW THIS NEWS, THE MEDIA WON’T !” before cutting and pasting our favorite message in the whole wide world into his WordPress blog:
QUIETLY OBAMA’S CITIZENSHIP CASE REACHES THE SUPREME COURT AP- WASHINGTON D.C. – In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group “Americans for Freedom of Information” has Released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College .. Released today, the transcript school indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate…
You know the rest. This fake AP story was exposed as a hoax in the Spring of 2009, and here we are in the early days of 2010, watching the right wing cling to the story like the last few tatters of toilet paper on the roll.
John Preiss, you don’t know better, but you should. You’re the Chump of the Day!
January 12, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Can you find any website (other than this fictitious one) for Americans for Freedom of Information?
Can you find any actual Occidental College application for Barack Obama or “Barry Soetoro”?
When you go to Google News or Newsbank or Lexis-Nexis or any other newspaper database, can you find any direct record of an actual Associated Press article regarding Barack Obama applying as “Barry Soetoro” to Occidential College as a foreign student?
Using the same method, can you find any record of any article in Britain’s Daily Mail with the headline “Obama Eligibility Questioned”?
The answer is no: no, you cannot.
Given that you cannot find these things — because they do not exist — what do you conclude?
Option A) That the story regarding Barack Obama registering as Indonesian “Barry Soetoro” at Occidental College is a hoax and a lie.
Option B) That the effort to suppress the truth about Barack Obama’s foreign origins is even more sweeping and nefarious than previously imagined, including the power to erase transcripts, records, organizations and multiple news stories entirely.
If you visit the message boards for “Glock Talk”, the answer appears to be Option B. And that makes Glock Talk our Chump of the Day!
May 11, 2009 at 12:55 pm
David L. O’Connor writes on “The Patriotic Resistance: The network for idea-based resistance to Obama-led socialistic agenda”. He cuts and pastes that ol’ familiar hoaxed text into his blog:
AP- WASHINGTON D.C. – In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group “Americans for Freedom of Information” has released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College. Released today, the transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship. This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama’s detractors have been seeking.
This is typical and unremarkable as far as it goes. As a matter of non-fact, we who do not exist here at the completely fictitious Americans for Freedom of Information were rather disappointed in Mr. O’Connor’s presentation. Couldn’t he add some new juicy lies to supplement our lies? You know, something like this:
A source who wishes to remain anonymous for national security purposes informs me that Obama’s National Security Adviser has convened a Fox Eagle Priority One team of “fixers” to remove all sources on this story as soon as possible.
That would have been a great new fictional twist to add to this fake story. Then, see, other right-wing bloggers could link to O’Connor, and another layer of bloggers could link to those stories, then someone could post on Free Republic the question “Why Won’t Obama answer Questions About His Fox Eagle Coverup Program?,” and then FOX News could put a story on the air with the header, “Online Bursts With Rumors of High-Level Obama Birth Certificate Coverup. High Crime or Misdemeaner?” That would have been great! But no, O’Connor just cuts and pastes. Unimaginative. Drone-like. Still a useful chump, but kind of boring.
But wait, there’s more! David O’Connor redeems himself in the “comments” section, where he responds to his own article without waiting for anyone else to jump in first:
Most info that I and hundreds and maybe thousands of others have accumulated has come from all over the world…. I posted on my web site and sent it out to ALL radio,print and T.V. news outlets.I will post all the media outlets for anyone that wants them on a blog on my page here on this site.
…
You can google Freedom Of Information or google topic you seek ,Like, Obamas College Records or what is needed.As i just added one connection i will continue to add other links as i find them in ref to this article.Thanks for checking. If you find any additional links please let us know. We must be able to communicate vital info as we get it.
At the last minute, you turn it around, Mr. O’Connor! Yes! A methodology section. See, for all you folks out there who don’t know how to do research, this is how you do it. You just go to Google and search for a term, and anything that turns up, BINGO! Research! Information! Genius!
Keep on churning out the Google material, Donald, or Derbert, or whoever you are. It helps us spread the hoax, and it makes YOU the CHUMP OF THE DAY!
May 8, 2009 at 1:34 pm
My, we have so many chumps spreading lies to choose from this morning. Who is today’s winner?
WarrantOneGirl writes cuts and pastes this morning:
In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group “Americans for Freedom of Information” has released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College. Released today, the transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship. This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama’s detractors have been seeking.
Tickle, tickle, tee hee! No, Americans for Freedom of Information does not exist. No, there is not a single actual document from the physical plane of this universe to support this notion. But yes, by getting WarrantOneGirl to repeat the untruth verbatim we give this untruth a thicker patina of reality. And yes, WarrantOneGirl, that means you are our CHUMP!
May 7, 2009 at 12:44 pm
We are the Americans for Freedom of Information. We are a fictitious group of individuals; i.e. we do not exist. And yet, for a nonexistent organization we wield great power and knowledge! O Yea, Verily. OK, actually, not verily at all. Anti-verily, as a matter of an utter lack of fact.
Having not met in our non-existent office, we decided that the world needed to see the Occidental College transcripts and application materials that definitively prove Barack Obama registered as Barry Soetoro, foreign student of Indonesian citizenship! !! !!! And so, in the most hypothetical and not really actual sense, we drew up a press release that no one will ever find, called a press conference to which no journalists actually came, and somehow got the Associated Press to not write a news article that does not really exist, confirming it all. As our Executive Vice President for Paper Clips hypothetically put it, “Bwa. Bwa ha ha ha.”
From our lofty perch in the Astral Plane we will enjoy, to the extent we exist, the fervent actual writings by right-wing websites ranging from Free Republic to a “nigger joke” website, obsessing over the unreal, not-actual, never-happened activities of our organization and the amazingly made-up revelations that will forever not change our political landscape.
Weave tales about Barack Obama out of invisible silken threads? Oh yes, mighty Emperor. Yes We Can!
May 6, 2009 at 2:28 am
Who removed the text in the above section? What is their agenda? And why won't they let me complete my sent...
A Clue for the Literal-Minded
Read these tiny words very closely: the group Americans for Freedom of Information does not exist, just like the supposed "AP article" you keep cutting and pasting into e-mails to your irritated family does not exist, just like the "Daily Mail article" referenced in the fake "AP article" does not exist. They're all fabrications. Fakes. Hoaxes.
Ask yourself why you're so eager to believe these obvious fakes. No, really. Really, really ask yourself.
A Clue for Those Especially Allergic to Satire
No, we didn't create the hoax, either. Remember, we at Americans for Freedom of Information don't exist!
No One knows who did create the hoax. Unfortunately, we don't know No One or where he lives, so we can't ask No One about it. We do know her sister, Imnot Telling, but ever since the thing in the place with that other thing, we're not on speaking terms.
Americans for Freedom of Information: Really Now, We Do Not Exist 