Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, has sponsored the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act “to clarify those classes of individuals born in the United States who are nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” #

GOP representatives from Florida Sandy Adams, Jeff Miller, Richard Nugent, Bill Posey, Dennis Ross, Cliff Stearns and Allen West cosponsored the Act. #

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., earlier this month filed a similar version of this bill, cosponsored by three other GOP senators. #

Rasmussen Report adds that  the survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted on April 17 and 18, 2011. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points, with a 95 percent level of confidence. #

It also highlights that “while most voters favor stronger enforcement of immigration laws 55% of voters nationwide also are at least somewhat concerned that efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants will end up violating the civil rights of some U.S. citizens. Forty-two percent (42%) don’t share that concern. This includes 21% who are Very Concerned and 12% who are Not At All Concerned.” #

While many Republicans in Congress have come under fire in recent months for railing against federal health care reform while simultaneously accepting government-subsidized health insurance, a handful have moved to more legitimately align themselves with their position by refusing to accept the benefits afforded to federal employees. #

One such representative is Sandy Adams, R-Oviedo, who calls for the repeal of health care reform and has turned down Congress’ health insurance plan. Adams, however, still receives taxpayer-subsidized health insurance through her husband, a Florida judge. #

As we reported last week, only about 6 percent of the 242 House Republicans who voted for repeal have turned down coverage from the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, yet even they continue extending benefits to their staff. #

Those who have opted out of the Health Benefits Program and find themselves at the will of the free market insurance industry say they are now facing the same $1,200 monthly out-of-pocket premiums and potential rate hikes that currently burden the average American family. #

Via Politico: #

“I have a niece who has pre-existing conditions, and I worry about her if she was ever to lose her job,” said Florida Rep. Richard Nugent, one of the freshman lawmakers who declined federal health insurance benefits. #

Every single House Republican voted to repeal the health care law last month. #

“I can simply, honestly say that this is going to impact my wife and I to a fairly serious degree, like it would any average American out there,” said first-time Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois. #

Walsh’s wife has a pre-existing condition and will need a procedure in the coming months, but because he declined federal benefits, they’re paying for it out of pocket. Meanwhile, Walsh is contributing to a health savings account to cover his expenses. #

Some in the GOP have offered up a host of excuses for accepting taxpayer-subsidized health care. Following his swearing in last month, Rep. Michael Grimm of New York explained his rationale to the New York Daily News: #

“What am I, not supposed to have health care?” he said. “It’s practicality. I’m not going to become a burden for the state because I don’t have health care, and God forbid I get into an accident and I can’t afford the operation. That can happen to anyone.” #

His comments prompted a quick response from Democrats: #

“It’s clear that Rep. Michael Grimm is the worst kind of hypocrite – one who protects health care for himself instead of his constituents,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Jesse Ferguson. “Rep. Grimm has become the latest Republican health care hypocrite to demand government-funded health care benefits for himself, while trying to repeal health care reform and make it harder for most Americans to afford coverage for their own families.” #

Florida Rep. Bill Posey, another Republican sticking to the repeal mantra while enjoying state-sponsored health care, recently questioned his status as a federal employee in an attempt to sidestep the issue: #

ThinkProgress recently spoke with Posey, who gained notoriety in 2009 for sponsoring the original “birther bill” in Congress. We asked the congressmen if he plans to turn down government-subsidized health insurance for himself in light of his push to repeal health care reform. His response: “I don’t know. Am I a federal employee?”

ThinkProgress followed up with Rep. Posey’s press secretary George Cecala. Mr. Cecala confirmed for us that Congressman Posey is, indeed, a federal employee. In addition, despite Posey’s attempts to evade the question, Mr. Cecala told us that the Florida Republican does accept government-subsidized and managed health care and has done so for his entire congressional career. When asked how the congressman would respond to the hypocrisy angle, Mr. Cecala told us “you can’t just single out members of Congress and then just ignore other federal employees who receive the same benefits.” #

Speaking to that issue, on Tuesday, a coalition of progressive groups released radio spots targeting a handful of congressional Republicans, including Rep. Sandy Adams, R-Oviedo.

While Adams has been vocal about her refusal to accept federal health insurance, her office confirmed to The Florida Independent Wednesday that she in fact receives insurance through her husband, Circuit Judge John Adams of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida. #

Lisa Boothe, Adams’ communications director, was hesitant to comment on the matter in a telephone interview. #

Boothe pointed out that Adams is not accepting congressional benefits. ”This is a personal decision her and her husband made,” she said. “Her office would really rather focus on replacing the current health care law with common-sense reform and getting the economy back on track and talking about jobs. Quite frankly I think this issue is kind of tired. The story has been around for a while.” #

Boothe repeatedly insisted the topic was not one her office was interested in talking about. #

“I don’t understand while you’re still writing a story about this issue,” she said. “It’s a little bit tired and old. This is not really an issue we want to be commenting on.” #

When pressed for clarification, Boothe acknowledged that Adams is currently receiving benefits through her husband’s state-sponsored health care package. #

“At this point, she and her husband are on her husband’s health insurance, but she is not accepting the congressional health care insurance,” Boothe said. “And as I’ve already said, this is not really something that I think is that newsworthy, and secondly is not a focus of the office.” #

When asked if her accepting insurance through her husband was hypocritical, given that as a state employee and circuit judge his position afforded their family benefits very much like those federal employees are entitled to, our interview ended. #

“That’s the extent that I would like to comment on this,” Boothe said. “I think you’re turning this into something else.” #

According to the Department of Management Services, the majority of state workers, those in the “career services” bracket, currently pay a premium of $50 per month for an individual plan and $180 for a family. Senior management employees pay $8.34 a month individually and the family premium is $30. #

Florida’s “My Benefits” website outlines the costs associated with HMO and PPO plans provided by the state. A standard HMO has no annual deductible, $20 doctor visits and a $3,000 annual out-of-pocket maximum for families — a far cry from what the average American pays for private health insurance. #

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a report in January studying the effects of repealing the health care reform law, focusing on what the repercussions would be in Rep. Adams’ 24th congressional district alone, outlining “significant consequences” by, among other things, “allowing insurance companies to deny coverage to 129,000 to 333,000 individuals, including 9,000 to 39,000 children, with pre-existing conditions.” #

View the report in full: #

House Energy and Commerce Report on Repealing Health Care Law in Florida’s 24th Congressional District –

“I commend Rep. Bill Posey for taking the lead in introducing and securing co-sponsors for important legislation that enforces the presidential qualifications outlined in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution,” writes WND’s Joseph Farah in his introduction to the email. “It is critical that we begin enforcing the Constitution before the 2012 election with regard to the eligibility of presidential candidates.”

In his appeal, Posey asks donors to help him fend off an attack from Democrats–an attack based on his brave quest for presidential birth certificates.

“My bill (H.R. 1503) that would require all candidates for President in the future to provide documentation (such as a birth certificate) to prove they are natural born citizens of the United States, has resulted in the national liberal left making me Top target for defeat in the 2010 Congressional elections,” writes Posey. “As I said before, I’m being lambasted by the media and late-night comics and Nancy Pelosi’s team has already paid for tens of thousands of automated phone calls in my district and are raising a multi-million-dollar campaign war chest to defeat me.”

Here’s Farah’s introduction:

And here’s the fundraising splash page for Posey.

Mr. Posey should know that birth certificates don’t put out fires. Candidate Obama produced one. But Mr. Posey said he couldn’t swear on a stack of Bibles whether that meant Mr. Obama really was a natural-born U.S. citizen.

Mr. Posey should withdraw the bill, unless his real intent is to fire up opposition to Mr. Obama.

Posey has played an inside-outside game on this; as I pointed out on MSNBC last week, he has bellyached about mean local coverage of his quest to prove that Obama’s a citizen, but he’s appeared on fringe radio shows to compare Obama’s reluctance to produce more documents to a drug user’s reluctance to take a drug test.

Am I the only one to notice that mainstream media attention to the “Birthers” has picked up in recent weeks — and that this increased attention is coincident to the turn in Obama’s approval ratings?

A search of The Washington Post web site, for instance, on the term “Birther” yields as its oldest hit this one, from July 6; a search of The New York Times, though, shows first mention of the term on July 22.

Far be it from me to assume one is the cause of the other — as faithful readers know, I do my best to avoid falling into the post hoc, ergo propter hoc trap — but, still, it is an interesting coincidence.

I can’t speak to discussions inside those newspapers’ newsrooms, but I have been following this, err, story for a year, and before the blow-up this month, there were several bursts of “birther” attention whenever these people got into a courtroom to make their case. And searching for the term “birther” isn’t the way to check this.

For example, in December 2008 a New Jersey lawyer got the Supreme Court to read a lawsuit about Obama’s “natural born” status and consider it for the 2009 docket. That generated a lot of attention, including cable news and a column by Dana Milbank. But the high court passed on the case and America moved on. At that point, President-elect Barack Obama was riding on a wave of goodwill, so it’s hard to suggest the media was covering up for him. I’d track the current “birther boom” to the mid-July lawsuit filed by Orly Taitz on behalf of Maj. Stefan F. Cook. That got, among other coverage, a national heads-up from Sean Hannity on his Fox News show.

Last Monday I noticed a July 10 YouTube video of a woman in red howling at Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) about the birth certificate. I posted it at 8:57 a.m. The Drudge Report posted it at some point between 9:23 a.m. and 9:33 a.m. (You can see in Drudge’s archives that it was not up yet 26 minutes after my original post.) So I guess I started this current wave of birthermania. Sorry, Bill Pascoe!

More seriously, it’s impossible to imagine these people getting attention from mainstream media reporters if they didn’t get members of Congress to endorse their agenda with things like Rep. Bill Posey’s (R-Fla.) “birther bill,” or get Republicans at the state level to join onto to lawsuits against Obama, as several Tennessee Republican legislators have. The media isn’t forcing them to do this.

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Minority Leader John Boehner’s PAC, the Freedom Project, donated $5,000 to Posey’s campaign in June. Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s ERICPAC gave $7,500.

Kris Kobach campaigns in Wichita, Kans. (YouTube: WichitaLiberty)

Kris Kobach is a law professor with degrees from Harvard, Yale and Oxford, and a veteran of George W. Bush’s administration who, after Sept. 11, helped craft the policy on domestic registration of foreign visitors to the United States. In May, he announced a run for Kansas secretary of state, campaigning for photo ID requirements at the voting booth. He’s considered a clear front-runner for the job. But over the weekend, Kobach spoke at a Republican Party barbecue and committed a minor gaffe. According to the Lawrence Journal-World, Kobach “asked what President Obama and God had in common, with the punchline being neither has a birth certificate.”

Image by: Matt Mahurin

Kansas Democrats pounced. “While Kris Kobach has in the past associated himself with extremists who frequently show poor taste,” said state Democratic Party Executive Director Kenny Johnston, “his latest attempt at humor has gone too far.” Kobach told the Democrats to “lighten up” before walking back the comment, explaining that “until a court says otherwise, I believe Barack Obama is a natural-born citizen.”

Kobach could have offered another defense. The joke was not his. One month earlier, Rush Limbaugh made the same remark on his radio show. “Barack Obama has one thing in common with God,” Limbaugh said. “Know what it is? God does not have a birth certificate either.” And Limbaugh may not have been writing his own material, either. At Patriot Depot, a conservative web site that sells books by Glenn Beck and signs designed for anti-tax Tea Parties, buyers can pay $10 to get two bumper stickers that read: “Obama & God Have ONLY ONE THING in Common: NO BIRTH CERTIFICATE! The Difference Is God Doesn’t Think He’s Obama!”According to a salesman for Patriot Depot, the company has sold “hundreds” of this and another birth certificate sticker since advertising them with the conservative opinion sites GOPUSA.com and Townhall.com.

Six months into Obama’s presidency, after scores of embarrassing legal defeats, and even after tussles between the attoneys who’ve turned frivolous lawsuits about the president’s citizenship into full-time jobs, the cottage industry of conspiracy theories about the president’s birth shows no signs of disappearing. The theories have found a home in talk radio and on conservative web sites such as Free Republic and WorldNetDaily. Conspiracy theorists are increasingly sending letters to their local papers, embarrassing members of Congress at town hall meetings, and hounding Hill staffers about challenges to the president’s citizenship.

“I wouldn’t consider what Kris Kobach said a ‘gaffe,’ although it wasn’t a prudent comment,” said William B. Lacy, director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. “It’s not at the root of the complaint that conservative [Republicans] have with this administration. In essence, what any Republican is doing by raising that issue is creating his or her own red herring. Kobach is probably okay here, but there’s a certain danger, I think, if it becomes something you repeat on a continuous basis.”

There’s no indication that the White House is worried about all of this. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has occasionally called on Lester Kinsolving, a radio host and correspondent for WorldNetDaily, to air the latest theories about the president’s citizenship as a way of defusing tense press briefings. While “birthers” claim that the president’s lawyers have spent “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars” fighting their lawsuits, they’ve never provided evidence for that claim. Indeed, most of the suits have been tossed out of court on technicalities.

Ironically, the ‘birther’ movement began in response to Obama’s own efforts to debunk rumors. One year ago this week, the presidential campaign of then-Sen. Barack Obama launched FightTheSmears.com, a web site designed to push back against false rumors about the first African-American presidential nominee. To push back against rumors that he was not born in Hawaii, the campaign reproduced a Certificate of Live Birth from the state’s Health Department. Instead of terminating the conspiracy theories, that inspired new theories — that the certificate had been forged or that even if it hadn’t been forged it was the sort of certificate that could be given to someone born outside of the United States. But the certificate is specific about Obama’s birth in Honolulu, down to the 7:24 p.m. time.

“It’s crazy,” said Janice Okubo, director of communications for the Hawaii Department of Health. “I don’t think anything is ever going to satisfy them.”

Okubo, who said that she gets weekly questions from Obama ‘Birthers’ that are “more like threats,” explained that the certificate of live birth reproduced by Obama’s campaign should have debunked the conspiracy theories. “If you were born in Bali, for example,” Okubo explained, “you could get a certificate from the state of Hawaii saying you were born in Bali. You could not get a certificate saying you were born in Honolulu. The state has to verify a fact like that for it to appear on the certificate. But it’s become very clear that it doesn’t matter what I say. The people who are questioning this bring up all these implausible scenarios. What if the physician lied? What if the state lied? It’s just become an urban legend at this point.”

The urban legend has become too pervasive for Republicans to avoid. In February, Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) introduced a much-mocked bill that would require presidential campaigns to provide “a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate.” While Posey initially said that he disbelieved conspiracy theories about the president’s birth, he told the host of an Internet radio show that he’d discussed the possibility of Obama being removed from office over “the eligibility issue” with “high-ranking members of our Judiciary Committee.” As of July 15, nine fellow Republican members of Congress were backing the bill. While Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) has said that he supports the bill because he didn’t know whether Obama was a citizen, other sponsors say that they weighed in to pour cold water on the conspiracy theories.

“It’s a good idea,” said John Donnelly, a spokesman for Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who became one of the bill’s co-sponsors this month. “If candidates provided that information to the Federal Election Commission you wouldn’t have all this hullaballoo. You don’t want to needlessly expose presidents to crazy conspiracy theories.”

At the state level, “birther” conspiracy theorists have made headway in getting Republican lawmakers interested in legislation like Posey’s. At least four Republican members of Missouri’s state legislature have looked into introducing a similar bill. State Sen. Randy Brogdon (R-Okla.) who is running for governor of Oklahoma in 2010, said that he’d co-sponsor birth certificate legislation if it made it out of the state senate and would “definitely” sign the bill if he won the governorship.

“You bet I’d sign it,” said Brodgon. “I know I’d have no problem showing my birth certificate.”

The Republicans who appear to be willing to listen to “birthers,” even to debunk them, have to walk a tightrope. In April, freshman Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) held a town hall meeting at her old high school in Cheyenne, Wyo., and got a question about the president’s citizenship. Lummis challenged the skeptic to “please send” evidence that the president was not a natural-born citizen. “I’m not questioning your concern,” Lummis said. “I am questioning whether there is credible evidence.” In early July, a small group of “birthers” walked the halls of Congress handing “grand jury presentments” over to the confused front desk assistants of members of Congress; the activists rushed online to report the latest member who had been “handed” the information. After “birthers” provided some of their papers to Michael Schwartz, the chief of staff to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), they rushed online to report that Schwartz had been won over to the cause and was about to get in touch with Orly Taitz, a California lawyer who has filed several unsuccessful challenges to the president’s citizenship.

“It is possible to mistake politeness for agreement,” Schwartz told TWI, “and I make every effort to be polite.” He did have a “brief conversation with Dr. Taitz,” but challenged the way online “birthers” had hyped their contact with Coburn’s office. “An observer would not report it quite like this,” said Schwartz.

Taitz’s lawsuits and the pressure of conservative talkers like Limbaugh have made it increasingly difficult for Republicans to avoid the “birthers.” On June 16, after Limbaugh joked about the president’s citizenship, WorldNetDaily editor-in-chief Joseph Farah appeared on the Web-based Recharge Radio to thank the host for spreading the “birther” message. “What that did is beyond Rush’s impact,” said Farah. “It also gives other talk show hosts license to talk about this issue … Rush is kind of the standard of talk show hosts. A lot of people emulate what he does. He crossed the Rubicon on that show, and I’m very proud of him for doing it.”

Farah’s instincts have been borne out by conservative media. This week, Taitz represented Maj. Stefan F. Cook, a reservist who volunteered for duty in Afghanistan, then demanded to be released from the commitment unless the president proved that he was a U.S. citizen. “I did not volunteer with the intent of becoming a conscientious objector,” Cook told TWI in an email. On Wednesday Cook’s deployment was cancelled, and a spokesman for Centcom took issue with Taitz’s claim, made in a WorldNetDaily story, that this decision verified conspiracy theories about the president’s birth. Later that night, Sean Hannity cited the story on his Fox News show and used Taitz’s version of the facts, not Centcom’s.

“Major Cook and his lawyer expressed joy at this outcome,” said Hannity. “And they took it as an admission on the part of the military that the president is not in fact a legitimate citizen by birth.”

Burton is an ironic recruit to the cause. In the 1990s, he earned the nickname “Watermelon Dan” for his innumerable conspiracy theories about President Bill Clinton; he once ushered reporters into his backyard to watch him shoot a watermelon as a way of proving that Vince Foster’s death could not have been a suicide. And with the addition of the new Texas co-sponsors, a full quarter of the state’s 20-member Republican delegation to Congress is now backing the Posey bill.

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Via WorldNetDaily’s Andrea Shea King, who transcribes a stunning interview Posey gave her on her Internet radio show. Posey, who referred to the story as the “eligibility dilemma” and said King brought it to his attention, outright accused the president of hiding something: “The only people that I know who are afraid to take drug tests are the people who use drugs.” He also admitted speaking with “high-ranking members of our judiciary committee” about the chances of Obama “being removed from office,” but said there was “zero chance” of success there.

On how he got the co-sponsors:

I was talking to Neugebauer about it, and my good friend John Culberson was listening to the conversation and so Randy said, “Yeah, I told my staff I wanted to sign up on that already.” And having heard the conversation, Culberson says, “Yeah, sign me up.” And the judge (Carter) was sitting in the next row listening to the conversation and he said, “By God, sign me up!” So you know, we might start getting a little bit of steam here pretty soon. I didn’t strong arm these people. I haven’t begged anybody to sign on this thing, I haven’t asked anybody, really. The people that come up and slap me on the back and say, “Good luck to you!” I say, “Hey, there’s room for you on here!” And of course, they start doing the moonwalk, you know? “Oh no, no, no, congressman!” But you know, times change and time wounds all heels.

On the media and what seems to be a one-way feud with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow:

You may recall that [Stephen] Colbert used the “F” word to describe on national TV a relationship my grandmother, bless her heart, deceased grandmother, must have had with an alligator to come up with the likes of me. [Keith] Olbermann named me the Worst Person in the World and angry woman Rachel Maddow has just trashed me on every show, and asked me to come on her show. You know, I won’t do it cause she’s got a lousy, low rated show, and I don’t want to give her the ratings, quite frankly. I’d love to go on and debate her and set the record straight.

UPDATE: More from the interview, Posey recounts his conversation with Goodlatte:

He said, “You’re trying to do what is right and I want to be a part of that. I said, “There’s just not too many other people around here who want to be a part of that.” He said, “Well, some day they may regret it.”

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“There’s nothing in the Constitution about what you do to show that you met the requirements and there is nothing in federal law,” Goodlatte said recently.

Goodlatte called the bill a “housekeeping” matter.

“It doesn’t have an impact on the outcome of the election [last year],” he said.

Ironically, the bill only requires “a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate,” which President Obama made public on his “Fight The Smears” Website last year.

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