I love the internet

Earlier this week, the birther folks who believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya thought they had a humdinger of a smoking gun. They received a birth certificate showing that Obama was born in Mombassa, Kenya. It took less than two days for the internet to find the source document from which it was generated, an Australian birth certificate posted online at a geneaology website. Internet sleuths are so badass!

But, the only thing I love better than good sleuthing is parody, so you can imagine my joy and cackling when I discovered that someone has already put up a Kenyan Birth Certificate Generator. I love the internet!

Why the birthers lose

Slate finally asks the question that we should have been posing to the birthers all along: suppose Barack Obama was really born outside the U.S....legally, would it really matter? Among the not very complicated legal reasons why there would be virtually no way the birthers would prevail in a challenge to the legitimacy of Obama's presidency even if they finally found the smoking gun of Kenya birth:

1. No citizen in the U.S. would have standing to sue to challenge his presidency, because every citizen would be impacted equivalently and courts routinely interpret such situations as not conferring standing.

2. The people who ran against Obama in 2008 also wouldn't have standing because there is no legal relief available that would address their injury. Basically, if Hillary Clinton sued and won, it still wouldn't make her the winner of the Democratic primary or President. Instead it would just make Joe Biden President.

3. Even if someone established standing, courts would probably decide it was a political question not appropriate for adjudication. Courts would be very wary of forcing a Constitutional crisis that would oust a sitting President, particularly when there is a procedure specifically spelled out in the Constitution for that. Which brings us to...

4. Congress could impeach him, but it would be difficult to prove he committed a high crime or misdemeanor unless he actually knew he had been born in Kenya and conspired to hide it, thereby committing a fraud. If he didn't know, he wouldn't have done anything criminal that would qualify. Also, there's no way in hell this Congress votes to impeach him.

Of course this article doesn't go into the other big reason why it might not even matter: Obama was born to an American citizen, Stanley Ann Dunham, so much like John McCain he would have been a natural born citizen of the U.S. even though not born on American soil. (There is some question of whether she had been a citizen for 5 years beyond her 14th birthday, a requirement under some statutes to be considered a full citizen, but it's not even clear that applies.) Being a natural born citizen is all the constitution requires, and does not necessarily require birth on U.S. soil despite the ravings of people who have obviously never read said Constitution. Being born on U.S. soil is the easiest, but not the ONLY, way to be a legally natural born citizen.

(The Constitution also does not require that both biological or legal parents be American citizens, but that won't stop some of the whackjobbier birthers from claiming it anyway.)

So there you have it, even if you assume the crazy things they would have you assume, it still won't change anything. Can we move on to more important matters now?

Kenya smell the crazy?

Slowly but steadily over the past few weeks, the so-called "birthers" (people who believe Barack Obama was not actually born on U.S. soil and is therefore ineligible for the presidency) have picked up recruits to their cause. Just this week, both CNN's Lou Dobbs and right wing fire breathing radio host Rush Limbaugh signed on to the rumbling hordes demanding proof of citizenship.

But Gawker has a damn good point: even if you believe that the birth certificate that Obama's campaign produced last year was faked or created after the fact, how do you explain the birth announcement in the Honolulu paper that's been available on microfiche for decades?

Regardless, I agree with what Marc Ambinder wrote yesterday. The rise of this movement is more problematic for Republicans than Democrats:

Republicans have to be extra careful. If they give credence to the birthers, they're (not only advancing ignorance but also) betraying the narrowness of their base. If they dismiss this growing movement, they might drive birthers to find more extreme candidates, which will fragment a Republican political coalition.

Quote of the Day, inspirational edition

"It would be a tragedy if all of you who are so talented and energetic -- if you let that go to waste, if you just stood back and watched the world pass you by...Better to jump in, get involved -- and it does mean that sometimes you'll get criticized and sometimes you'll fail and sometimes you'll be disappointed -- but you'll have a great adventure. And at the end of your life, hopefully you'll be able to look back and say, 'I made a difference.'"

--Our President, in response to a question from a German woman in Strasbourg as to whether he ever regretted running for President.

"Life’s short and we all go to the same place when we die."

Those are the words of Elwin Wilson, a South Carolina man who came forward recently to apologize to John Lewis for beating him during a civil rights era protest at the Rock Hill, S.C. bus station. Formerly an unabashed racist, Wilson has recently disavowed his former views and sought redemption and forgiveness, first with local civil rights activists and then from Congressman Lewis once he discovered that the man he had beaten nearly 50 years ago had become a member of the House of Representatives. Read both accounts of the reunion, and tell me if you don't start to feel like change really has come to America.

More and more often I am getting the feeling that old school bigots and segregationists must be realizing that the country has left them behind, and told them that there is no place for their views at our table now. This is a wonderful thing.

Inauguration Day Photos

I promised these a few days ago but just finally am getting around to posting them...blame the illness I contracted from my roommate on this trip, which is making me want to do nothing more than lay in bed and sniffle.

Anyhow, here are my pictures from our very cold but wonderful day witnessing history. Enjoy.

Our view of the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony, which we could hear but not really see:




A look backwards at the million or so people behind us on the Mall:



The crowds in every direction were HUGE:






We were so so very cold, but so happy it didn't matter:



Afterwards, some fool people were walking across the ice of the frozen reflecting pool (and a few fell):

The rest of the story

Before the inauguration itself, there was the We Are One concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday the 18th. We arrived just before it began due to brunch running a little long, but secured a decent spot just behind the WWII Memorial near a Jumbotron. It wasn't terribly cold, and the pushing and shoving was mostly down to a minimum (though we did have a near altercation with a tall nasty man who cut right in front of a few of us and stood there, splitting apart our group, and then refused to move or even be civil about it. We nicknamed him "Bitter Sasquatch.")

By now you have probably seen the HBO airing of the concert, so you know who all performed and what they sang. I started crying when the gospel choir sang the first words of "The Rising" before Bruce began strumming, and cried through most of the concert. It was such a wonderful outpouring of joy that so many dreams were finally being realized. Soon thereafter, Jon Bon Jovi and Betty LaVette performed Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come." I would never have expected JBV to pour the soul on like he did on that song, but it was really amazing. That is perhaps my favorite song epitomizing the civil rights struggle. My other two favorite moments were U2 performing "Pride (In the Name of Love)," and Pete Seeger, Bruce and a gospel choir performing "This Land Is Your Land," as the entire choir sang along. To see old hippie Pete Seeger's joy in the culmination of his hopes and hard work...it was spectacular. Everyone cried at that one.

Here are my pictures from the day:













The best part may have been after the concert, when we inched forward with the throngs for over an hour trying to get off the Mall. We ended up finally darting down a side street, where we were screamed at by a police officer when we tried to cross the street. With tails between our legs, we walked along the sidewalk until we came to a point where the sidewalk was closed, and another police officer told us that we had to wait there because the President-Elect's motorcade was about to come through. Suddenly, there it was! And because we were so close to the vehicle, you could actually see Obama wave at us from inside the back of the limousine. I was trying to snap a picture and failed somewhat, since what you see here is really the back of his limo and the front of the SUV behind it. But was still very very cool to have been that close and to have been acknowledged by Obama as he rode to his destination.

What I saw at the inauguration

I wish I could say that today’s inauguration experience was perfect. It easily skyrocketed to the top of my all-time life experiences list, and yet it was also so filled with discomfort and fear and worry and illness and damn near ugliness, that it is hard for me to separate that out from the wonderful hour that I spent watching the swearing-in itself. I cannot tell that glorious story without telling the rest of the story. I will not have photographs until I get home to Atlanta tomorrow (I forgot my camera cord like a moron) but for now I will get down what I can about my on-the-ground story from today’s historic events.

I attended the swearing-in with my friend Jen, and we were fortunate enough to have received a gift of swearing-in tickets from a friend who acquired extras. The ticketed areas did not open until 8:00 a.m., so we decided we needed to try and get into the line by about 7:30. Unfortunately, yesterday Jen got a terrible cold and we both barely slept while she sniffled through her night (we are lodged in the same 2 twin bed guest room), so the 5:30 a.m. wakeup call was extremely painful. We were staying with my friend Elaine who lives in North Capitol Hill, and she had promised to drive us as close as she could get us to the walking route. Because of Jen’s illness we had difficulty leaving the house before 7:00 a.m. but with Elaine’s help and a healthy walk around the Capitol, we made it to the silver ticketed line area about 7:35. We saw the front of the line, and walked…walked…walked…walked to the back of the line. It was at least 4 blocks away, at least a few thousand people in line ahead of us. But we lined up at 7:40. I was starting to come down with her illness and felt terribly nauseous, but I pushed through the pain and the cold ready to wait for my treasured historic experience.

The line began moving right at 8:00, and by 8:30 we were within sight of the silver gate on 3rd street. The line promptly stopped there and we began moving in tiny fits every 20 minutes or so. We were distressed to see more and more people showing up late and deciding to just get in line around us, not caring about the tens of thousands of people they were line jumping in front of. Because of this continual growing of the line all around us, it seemed as though the line was continually growing fatter, but almost never moving forward. It was very distressing as the hours ticked off and we moved only feet closer to the gate always looming in front of us. Periodically we would see people in front of us waving their tickets in the air, but we could not hear anything so we presumed they were trying to get security to force them to let us in.

As we neared the gate slowly, the crowd got pushier and angrier. I spent nearly an hour forced to lean over a towncar in the roadway, which was both painful and scary as people pushed the car in all directions. The crowd behind us would periodically start trying to push us forward and chanting “Let Us In!” and we sincerely feared a stampede and trampling. As we stood there until after 11:00 a.m., we became convinced that we would never get into the ticketed area, and that we would be forced to “watch” the swearing-in from just beyond the silver gate, with no sound or video to tell us anything about the event. I wrote a very strongly worded letter in my head to Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Inaugural Committee who was responsible for the arrangements including the ticketing. I wished I had never gotten tickets, because at least on the mall with the throngs I could have ensured I had a spot near a Jumbotron with sound.

While all of this was going on, it was so cold that I could not feel my legs. Despite layering, hand and toe warmers, a neck warmer, a stupid looking hat that covered my ears, 2 layers of gloves, and being in a crowd of a bajillion people, the weather hovered in the 20s with a serious biting wind that seemed to find every nook and cranny in my gloves, socks, scarf, and hat. A nascent cold and the chills that accompanied it certainly did not help. I have never been this cold for this long in my life.

Finally at approximately 11:20 a.m., with the swearing-in ceremony about to start, we made it to the front of the line just under the silver gate. A line of police officers asked us in a group to hold up our tickets (though they did not check to be sure everyone had one or that they were real tickets and not counterfeits), and then they let a mass of at least 50 people through the gate.. We were told this was just the first layer of security, and that we needed to head left to the next security gate. The silver ticket section was split into a forward and a back section, and we presumed only the back section was open. We attempted without success to navigate the huge crowd in front of us to find a security gate, and began to worry that we would be forced to “watch” the ceremony from this spot, where we also did not have a real view or any sound. Then, as we inched forward, suddenly the dam broke to our right about 11:25. Someone had knocked over the barrier and overpowered the security, and people were rushing into the front portion of the silver section. We made it through the barrier with them and ran up the hill to as good a spot as we could get, one with a decent view of the Capitol (though we were down a hill a bit) and in front of a speaker. Just as we finally got settled, the ceremony started. We had made it!

That was the bad, or at least most of it (the freezing cold 2 mile walk home was pretty tough too). As soon as the ceremony started and we realized the miracle had occurred and we had made it in, the experience was simply perfect. Despite the cold, I swear I did not feel it the entire time we were watching and listening to the swearing-in. I looked behind me and saw an entire mall filled with people waving American flags, and it made me feel so incredibly proud of my country and this day. 2 million people had braved the cold, the crowds, the likelihood that they would be resigned to watching a gigantic TV screen, because they wanted to be there and be a part of history. 2 million people cheered when Obama and Biden were introduced, boo’ed when George W. Bush was introduced (and they also sang “Na na na na…hey hey…good bye,” though I hear that was not audible on the TV coverage), and wept when the impossible dream became official and Barack Hussein Obama had become our President.

I wept with them all, openly and without shame, almost from the moment it all began. I found it profoundly moving, even as an agnostic, to say the Lord’s Prayer with everyone else around me during Rick Warren’s convocation. I sang the National Anthem with my countrymen and it meant so much more than I ever thought it could mean. I talked to total strangers about how happy we were that Teddy Kennedy made it to this day, and about how we Atlantans are so proud of Dr. Lowery. If I had imagined the most perfect swearing-in ceremony experience for myself, I could not have painted a better experience for myself than what I actually bore witness to today.

After the ceremony we let others leave in the crowd ahead of us and then wandered up to the frozen Reflecting Pool. We watched people walk across the ice (with a few falls) and sat on the steps and nursed our pained feet. We just let it all sink in, that we were witness to history and that a dream hatched two years ago was finally reality. President Bush was whisked away by helicopter, and we realized that our nightmare is finally over. And the dream given voice on that same mall over 40 years ago has been realized.

I am so happy that I came to D.C. for this inauguration, so happy that I stuck it out through illness, pain, cold, fear, frustration and difficulty to make it inside. I am so thankful that whatever higher power you choose to believe in allowed me to experience this moment in history in person, parted the walls of all the challenges we had faced all morning at the last minute and allowed us to pass and be a part of it all. For the 2 mile walk home, I practically floated.

Coming Attractions

I realize that I probably never mentioned here something very exciting that's about to happen in my life. This Friday, I am flying to Washington, D.C. so that I can attend the inauguration of Barack Obama. I would have happily done this even if I had to freeze my patoot off with 3 million other people on the mall hoping for a direct view of a Jumbotron, but as luck would have it a very dear friend came into some extra swearing-in tickets and has seen fit to give me one. (Yes, she has given me a ticket she could sell for $1400 on the internet. I have a sneaking suspicion I am going to OWE HER ONE for a very, very long time.) So, instead, next Tuesday January 20th I will get to freeze my patoot off with the 24,000 or whatever people next to me in the Congressional ticketed seating area.

Leading up to this I will be vacationing in D.C. for 3 days, and since I haven't been to D.C. since 2002 I am very much looking forward to it. Last time I was there this same dear friend gave me a quick and dirty tour of the best monuments, but I know there are about a bajillion things I didn't get a chance to see. So, as part of my planning for this trip that I have sadly left to the very last minute, I want you all to tell me the places I absolutely MUST see, the restaurants where I MUST eat, the bars where you had the best time, etc.

We are planning to go to the free concert on Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial, where just about every musician you've ever heard of will be performing. I am most excited about seeing Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder, two icons who I have never had the privilege of seeing live. I am quite certain I will freeze my patoot off at that show, too.

If I can get off my duff and go buy a new camera, I will hopefully regale you Tuesday or Wednesday with photographs and stories and such of the eight hours I froze my patoot off to watch a tiny speck in the distance raise his right hand and swear and affirm that he will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help him God.

I have a feeling this will be one of those immortal memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life. That's why I have been willing to pay through the nose for a plane ticket, subject my body to arctic temperatures for hours on end, and brave a crowd of millions despite being a touch claustrophobic. If I ever have grandchildren, I want to be able to tell them someday that I was there and saw it all with my own eyes. And, probably, wept through the whole thing too.

Untangling the knot

The first full year of the Roberts Court held many sad and infuriating surprises, including one that may have been lost in the deluge.

Lily Ledbetter was a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Plant in Alabama who learned after 19 years with the company that she earned far less than any male supervisor. She sued for pay discrimination based upon gender. A sharply divided Court ruled in Ledbetter v. Goodyear that women such as Ledbetter who wished to sue their employers for paying them lower wages than male employees for the same work could only bring their lawsuits within 180 days of the accrual of her claim, or it would be barred forever. While the 180 day statute of limitations isn't all that controversial, because it is the same deadline that applies to most gender discrimination lawsuits, the Court interpreted the 180 day clock to begin ticking on the first date that Ledbetter had been paid unequally as compared to her male counterparts, even though she did not learn of the pay disparity until many years later. The Court also ruled that future effects of the pay discrimination did not constitute a separate discriminatory act that started a new 180 day clock all over again.

In essence, the Court was saying if you didn't find out about the inequality within 180 days of when it began and file your lawsuit immediately, you lose. Effectively, this decision would result in the dismissal of all but a tiny fraction of pay disparity lawsuits, since almost no employee finds out right away that she is being paid much less than her male coworkers. As of right now, all an employer has to do in order to win such a lawsuit is submit payroll evidence showing the first point at which the female employee earned less than the male employee, and that that this date is more than 180 days before the filing of the lawsuit.

Congress has the power to change the federal pay discrimination statute to rectify this, but until now there was no reason to believe that President Bush would sign such legislation. Now that we can hear the drumbeat of change fast approaching, the House has just passed The Lily Ledbetter Pay Fair Act, named for the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case. This legislation would change the time for filing the lawsuit to 180 days after the employee learns of the pay disparity. The Senate is expected to pass it easily as well, and the new President will sign it.

There have been many bad things wrought by the Bush presidency and the Roberts Court, and it will take a great deal of time to untangle all of them and figure out how best to fix them. But it is very encouraging to see that the Congressional agenda for the first Democratic Presidency and Democratic Congressional Majority in 14 years includes undoing what damage we can. This is the great thing about a clean slate.

To give thanks

This morning it hit me like a ton of bricks: in seven weeks, Barack Obama will be President. Somehow in all of the excitement and drama over the election, the historic win, and the announcements of cabinet appointments, I'd lost sight of the amazingly hopeful and optimistic decision our country made on November 4th. I am so thankful that we as a country did not take the cynical way out, relying on prejudice and fear to guide us to a bad decision.

In these trying times fraught with worry and challenges, I think it's more important than ever to remind ourselves of all that we have to be thankful for. Here's a brief list of what I am keeping close to my heart as I head into the holiday, other than our incoming President:

1. I still have a job that pays me inordinately well. I know there are many who cannot say that now, and I fear every day that I will soon be among them. But for now, I can pay all of my bills, save money, even help out friends and family who might need it. That is a wonderful thing.

2. My parents and I are all healthy. Minor annoyances about colds and flus aside, none of us have had any major health problems recently. My grandfather went through a scare and a hospitalization earlier this year, but after getting a pacemaker he appears to be doing just fine. My aunt Grace lost her father early this year, and she just learned that her mother's kidney cancer had spread to her lungs before she had her kidney removed in September. They are deciding now whether she will have chemo & radiation, or let it run its course. Watching Grace deal with the challenges she has experienced with her parents this year makes me so thankful to have my parents still with me and doing well. I know many others wish they could say the same.

3. So many friends having babies this year! A friend in Boston had a baby girl last week, a friend here in Atlanta had a baby girl earlier this month, and another friend in Boston had a baby girl in May. Another friend is due to give birth in just a few weeks. (I also had a friend who lost twins early in a pregnancy a few months ago, and that was devastating.) So, I am very thankful for the wonderful babies that my friends are bringing into this world and thankful for the healthy pregnancies.

4. I am thankful for my friends. Despite all the drama and turmoil I go through, I always know that there are some very important people in my life who will be there for me whenever I need them. They have given me more than I could ever repay them for, and I hope to have them in my life for a long, long time. Those of you on this list know who you are, and I am so thankful that I met each of you. I hope none of you ever leave my life.

5. I am thankful that so many people I know poured their heart, soul, sweat and tears into this election. I respect the hell out of the people I know who were delegates, who knocked on doors and phone banked, who went on bus tours and to pancake breakfasts, who covered the election relentlessly on blogs and brought to light the stories nobody else was telling. The folks at Blog for Democracy, in particular, did all of these things in a year when nobody really expected major political change here in Georgia. But they were undeterred, and the Presidential election was closer than anyone imagined, while Jim Martin made it into a runoff and has at least a fighting chance of unseating Saxby Chambliss. Even if we didn't turn Georgia blue (yet), I am so thankful that there are still people willing to fight tooth and nail to work towards that goal someday. You make my cold cynical heart swell with pride to know such optimism and ambition.