Obama Indicted At Birthers' "Citizen Grand Juries" (VIDEO)

The Washington Independent's Dave Weigel -- who, like a Jane Goodall of political madness, has logged many an hour studying the panicky paranoid fringe in its natural habitat -- highlights the latest "birther" craze: the formation of "citizen grand juries" devoted to exposing the truth that Barack Obama is not an American citizen. In other words, having failed to get any actual legal bodies to take an interest in this nonsense, these people are just making up their own! And possibly meeting in tree forts or something! Who knows? It's called folie à plusieurs, people!

Anyway, here is a video of Carl Swensson, talking about the awesome pretend indictments that an ad hoc, Aaron Copland-inspired Star Chamber has handed down, accusing Barack Obama of fraud and treason! And he's standing in front of an actual courthouse, because WOO, GRAVITAS! Did you know that these citizen grand juries are operating in all sorts of states, too? Well, five states, so far. And more to come! They will keep on convening pretend grand juries and handing down ersatz indictments until either someone finally starts paying attention or until ... you know -- Obama has them all disappeared or something.

[WATCH.]

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to [e-mail] -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[deschl]

no wonder I was unable to find any aluminum foil at the grocery store.....­...

[clearwaterclearmind]

how ignorant am i? very i'm sure, but so far iv'e yet to see anything that couldn't have been made with an m$ w0rd clone program. after an hour of searching iv'e seen nothing but damage control sites that say things like "claim: a certificate of live birth provided by the O campaign was a forgery" followed by filled in boxes marked "false" with no proof except maybe a link to the aforementioned live birth document that looks more like a my-s.p.a,c­.e. background than a real document, and a quote from un-named someone who asserts that "yes the document seems very genuine."

combine that ambiguity with the birth certificate protection act, which "would prohibit federal employees of executive branch from being compelled to release any document unless a court makes a specified determination by a preponderance of evidence" at the same time a debate over the matter is going on, and you have the appearance of impropriety, which of course is going to jumped upon by anyone upset over how the election went.

i'm not saying our POTUS should be unseated on a technicality, i'm saying that i am as wary of the president as i am of any other politician, and that this issue could have been nipped in the bud with just a little bit of that transparency that he ran on. you can call me whatever you want, but i'm not going to start blindly believing everything guv tells me.

[jnutlfam2]

You didn't believe bush and the rhetoric for the iraq war?

[clearwaterclearmind]

lol, to be honest i was pretty young and dumb back in '03, and left politics to my elders while i was busy working, studying, or being a nihilistic youth, though i did vote against him in '04 (even though i wasn't too impressed with kerry).

my basic stance is that anything any elected official does should be scrutinized in broad daylight, and that everyone should ask themselves "devil's advocate" type questions of those they support. politics is too often like professional wrestling, with positions being changed according to what one thinks the crowd likes for the honor of keeping one's hand in the honey jar.

public service is the furthest thing from some of these people's minds, and party affiliation has little to do with being susceptible to greed.

which of course has little to do with my post, i just wanted to say that i'm not a republican, i'm just some jerk.

[Stanislaw]

The reason treating this whole "conspiracy" as just that is because even if they did release the original birth certificate (which, as far as I know, is forbidden by Hawaii's own state laws), it would never end. I normally don't like linking to an article, but this sums up the mentality of the birthers better than anything that I've seen so far: http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/main/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/591/Obamas-Birth-Certificate-Why-the-controversy-wont-go-away-hilarious.aspx

[noaxe397]

Believe it or not, nothing new here. The same stuff happened during the Clinton years with the fringe, with fundie crazies and self styled militia crackpots using arcane and obsolete legal terms and opinions from the 18th and 19th centuries to claim they did not have to pay tax or have a drivers license or SS card or comply with building codes or comply with judgements against them.

Two things, though, are different today. The president is black and we have the Patriot Act.

[IsyFleur]

Hopefully, this clown realizes that Aaron Copland, who's music is playing in the background, was a gay communist :-)

[felisa11]

it would be funny, if it wasn't so deadly serious.

[Norge]

Ja, they got pissed on and now they are pissed off.
They do not like that majority rule stuff.
Obama was born in the Kingdom of Hawaii.

After the marines overthrough the queen.

[OKnight]

no, i'm spartucus.­..

[just4shiggles]

If only these nuts would spend all of that money and energy on good and not evil. The world could be a little better place.

[voltage356]

Carl Swensso wasn't even born in the USA. He was born in China.

[chitown8]

WTF!

No record as him being State senator.



He is an Alien!

[Eris23Skidoo]

That was the most bizarre part of the whole thing.

[tinarm]

I just love the nutcases, man if they are not crazy I don't know what is. Crazy! I love it, it is amazing, see apparently Obama is just a figment of everyone's imagination, he really was never a senator in Illinois we just thought he was. He was and is still just a figment of all of our irrational brains.

[grata2ude]

None of these whack jobs should be allowed to breed.

[peacegurl48]

I'm sure that Dr. Tiller was similarly "indicted"; how terrifying that some nutcase would try to harm the President because of this crazy, pseudo-legal, self-righteous "indictment".

[NoahVail]

Uh-huh...

I think this is where these guys meet: http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

[BluesDogLefty]

Dude, it is NOT paranoia if people are really . . . I mean, it's not paranoia if people are really trying to . . . wait . . . it's NOT paranoia if these folks are actually simply really not that smart.

[Eris23Skidoo]

Wow...how did we ever stay sane before the invention of tin foil?

[robXdion]

This is some funny shiggety !!! Why did I hear Dave Chappelle's "Clayton Bigsby" character screaming, "White Power !!" in the background as the music played?