When I followed the link to the MCSO Cold Case Posse Prayer Support Group Facebook page, my punking antenna was up; however, this seems to be a straight-up page supporting the Cold Case Posse. The group’s founder says:
This page is dedicated to covering the MCSO Cold Case Posse in prayer for the Lord’s wisdom and safety over these people. Join us today as the day nears when this criminal investigation will finally expose the fraudulent usurpation of the office of President of the United States. We will be posting articles and updates here on a continuous basis. If you are a man or woman of prayer please join us, especially now as the day approaches.
I have Mike Zullo on my personal prayer list, which means I have to be nicer to him in print than I might otherwise be inclined to be, and I can subscribe to part of that mission statement: wisdom and safety. I do not however, acknowledge that any day is nearing when Obama will be “exposed” for something he didn’t do. The only danger to the Cold Case Posse is the just consequences of their own actions. I can pray for justice tempered with mercy, but not that the Posse’s misdeeds go without recognition and sanction.
So far I have refrained from commenting on the Facebook page because I can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t go towards confirming the prejudices against anti-birthers that many in the birther community hold. If it devolves into hate speech, I’ll reconsider.
I’ve been thinking about writing an essay titled “The Conservative attack on Christianity.” If I do, it will be published on one of my other blogs, perhaps Jesus was a Liberal, and I’ll leave a note in the Open Thread here. There is no shortage of precedent in the Bible for prayer to end oppression,1 and these birthers, fanned by the right-wing media, earnestly believe that Obama is an oppressor as well as a usurper, but the virulent hate speech we see coming from those attaching the President is inimical to Christian principles.
1Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?–Psalms 44:24 (ESV)
Just a thought. Listening to the Reverend Gallups and Zullo today and comments on BR, I was left with the impression that the CCP is actively putting up websites or possibly using sites that belong to others to entice anti-Birthers to post their thoughts to obtain I.P. addresses. That is an interesting thought, isn’t it?
“….but the virulent hate speech we see coming from those attaching the President is inimical to Christian principles.”
And it happens all the time.
Sounds pretty stupid to me. To what end would they be collecting IP addresses? What crimes are anti-birthers committing by expressing their opinions on the internet? None that I can think of.
Hopefully someone in Phoenix will ask the MCSO if they have indeed assigned paid deputies to this “investigation” and if they support the posse monitoring and tracking down people exercising their free speech rights?
If (and I doubt it’s true) they are operating websites to lure in anti-birthers I suspect they would be stupid enough to push it to the point of entrapment.
Doc, you might also consider joining the prayer room for Operation American Spring.
I believe this qualifies as a Birther group now that it has been taken over by “Dr. Wiley Drake, Chaplain at Large.”
http://patriotsforamerica.ning.com/group/oas-prayer-warriors-group
The idea of getting 10 million together for a demonstration/revolution would imply that they might have to welcome participation from some persons who are not exclusively fundamentalist Protestants or Evangelicals. However there do not seem to be any other in the group at present.
Wonder how they would react if a person having a radically different religion such as a Roman Catholic or Mormon or (gasp) worse, offered a prayer?
It does?
To understand birthers, you have to think like the Taliban.
I don’t think I can do that but I can read history and it is replete with examples of the extremes to which these folks will go. Left to their own devices many of the people ranting on BirtherReport and FreeRepublic would feel quite comfortable rounding up anti-birthers and locking them away in camps.
ORYR has apparently revealed today what the mechanism will be for not releasing the “Universe shattering new information” as originally scheduled. They now claim Sheriff Joe has opened a “new investigation” so there MAY be two different announcement press releases! Haaaaaaaaaa, haaaaaaaaaaa!
It’s pretty obvious, even one of their commentors immediately responded they thought Zullo was already trying to “let them down easy”.
They’ll have the March or April announcement and it will be the same old bogus claims of criminal document fraud! Then they;ll say the earth-shattering information can’t be released yet because it’s still being collected as part of an ongoing investigation!
It never ends with these clowns.
It is a front for Gallups/Shoesmith.
Same exact links are on that page, ppsimmons, Carl Gallups and Impeach Obama fb pages.
I read a couple of your “Jesus was a liberal” essays and just wanted to congratulate you on some insightful writing.
I particularly enjoyed your 2007 essay titled ‘Inerrancy’. Too many of the ‘spokespersons’ for Christianity today are of the ‘looking for validation of their faith in external sources’ variety. These folk have always struck me as specifically ‘anti-Christian’; that is my way of saying what you described as believing not in God, but in the Bible.
Of course, I acknowledge that, as others have pointed out to me, I may be engaging in the ‘one true Scotsman’ search when I try to place my own definition on what it is to be a Christian or what it is to believe in God. Never-the-less, when someone says “I am a Christian, I believe in the literal truth of the Bible, and the Bible says to Hate your Neighbor”, that person is being anti-Christian, as is the listener who tolerates that speaker, saying “that person is a Christian, his thoughts are pure”.
CarlOrcas
“Sounds pretty stupid to me. To what end would they be collecting IP addresses? What crimes are anti-birthers committing by expressing their opinions on the internet? None that I can think of.
Hopefully someone in Phoenix will ask the MCSO if they have indeed assigned paid deputies to this “investigation” and if they support the posse monitoring and tracking down people exercising their free speech rights?
If (and I doubt it’s true) they are operating websites to lure in anti-birthers I suspect they would be stupid enough to push it to the point of entrapment.”
And this would be a surprise? Nothing surprises me from these people. Listen carefully to the Freedom Friday broadcast (2/7/14) and listen to Gallups’ comment about the Xerox refutation of the Cold Case Posse investigation. I got the impression that this is a real sore spot for the CCCP and has evolved into a second criminal investigation by real law enforcement investigators at the MCSO. Of course this could all be nothing more than birther mind games. I would think that BR is one of the sites that are cooperating with the CCCP.
I have seen so many people post comments that Obama can’t be a Christian because he supports X or Y or Z…..
Thereby identifying themselves as Doc put it as part of the American Taliban- those intolerant of anyone who dares defy the orthodoxy that they personally subscribe to- and basically labelling any ‘Liberal’ Christians as false Christians- isolating themselves from the millions of Christian Americans.
I agree. Nothing surprises me either with these folks.
As far as “second criminal investigation” (there is no first, BTW) being handled by deputies I doubt that very much.
The MCSO has wasted millions of dollars in taxpayer’s money settling previous bogus investigations and false arrests. Even Arpaio isn’t stupid enough to get into another round of that nonsense just to make Mike Zullo feel good.
And, if by chance he did dive down that rabbit hole I believe the county supervisors would go nuts. On top of that there is a federal judge watching things (albeit it just immigration stuff) but if Arpaio goes nuts I don’t think it would take much to arouse the judge’s competitive spirit.
Bottom line: Birther mind games run amok.
Well, George did say “CCP”, not “MCSO”, so it wouldn’t have anything to do with crime.
There’s some talk at ORYR today about having traced “Obots'” IPAs to DARPA and the White House. So they might be trying to gin up a new conspiracy theory about the WH trying to interfere with their
jihad“[not really] official criminal [pretense of an] investigation”. If they can convince the suckers that Administration interest means “we’re on to something” (rather than the rational explanation that Carney’s office wants to know what the nutty wing of the press corps will be asking about, and the anti-terrorism people wanting to know which of the birfers preaching violent revolution might not be just harmless cranks), it might get more of those paypal buttons clicked.Or they might be trying for intimidation, by “outing” opponents (or, at least, threatening to).
Or they might just be full of crap. I think that’s where I’ll put my money this evening.
I wouldn’t put it past Arpaio to be wasting money belonging to the citizens of Maricopa County to investigate private citizens who have not committed any crimes and don’t have any connection to his jurisdiction. With all the controversy he’s faced the past several years, he still has a lot of support. Why does he care about anything as long as he keeps getting re-elected?
For those unfamiliar with it, this seems a good place to reprint the notorious “atheist’s prayer” devised by Roger Zelazny in CREATURES OF LIGHT & DARKNESS:
“Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done, or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.”
Or that other notorious prayer (sort of): “May the Good Lord bless and keep the bizarre … far away from us”.
These people need all the prayers they can get. 🙂
Hopefully, the CCP will deliver by March, at least the birth certificate part. We know the Xerox stuff is just strawman crap. RC still has yet to scan Ah’Nee’s birth certificate and report on the results.
Never underestimate Arpaio’s ability to do something untoward for his own benefit.
That said his popularly has actually been dropping like a rock for the last couple years; with 42% disapproving of how he’s doing his job compared to 37% approving.
Those numbers are from a poll last summer: http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_phoenix_metro/central_phoenix/new-poll-says-sheriff-joe-arpaios-approval-rating-declining
John – he doesn’t have a copy of the Ah’Nee BC to Xerox. The PDF that Orly released already has the same layers and artifacts as if it had been done on a Xerox.
Have Corsi send the certified copy of the Ah’Nee’s BC to RC and he will gladly make a Xerox of it.
John,
Please don’t make any rash decisions based upon that assumption. Like selling your house or giving away your possessions.
The Ah’nee certificate totally negates the CCP’s numbering and race code claims.
You’re kidding, right?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Actually NBC said he was going to do a big in-dept analysis into the Ah’Nee BC but he never published a a report. Ah’Nee’s BC is virtually identical in form to that of Obama’s BC. So, if we use RC’s process of scanning to the Xerox, it should produce a result exactly that to the White House PDF. All RC has to do is do it.
“The Ah’nee certificate totally negates the CCP’s numbering and race code claims.”
What’s that go to do with Xerox? I wish so much I had access to a Xerox WorkCenter. I would just love to scan Ah’Nee’s birth certificate on it. Will a Xerox scan produce white halos, 9 layers, movable date and signature stamps among other things.
Hopefully?
You don’t know for sure? Tell us it isn’t true, john.
Dr Ken,
“The Ah’nee certificate totally negates the CCP’s numbering and race code claims.”
That’s easy for them to fix. All they have to do is call the Ah’nee certificate fraudulent too. See what an easy solution that is?
john
February 8, 2014
“Hopefully, the CCP will deliver by March, at least the birth certificate part. We know the Xerox stuff is just strawman crap. RC still has yet to scan Ah’Nee’s birth certificate and report on the results.”
We’ve been there, and heard it before. We can’t wait for them to bring out the dancing bears and the singing chimpanzees to introduce the next bunch of CCCP tripe.
John, still waiting to hear the identities of Vogt ‘s Jane Doe 1 & 2. You must know since you are so close to the “investimagination.”
CarlOrcas,
“Never underestimate Arpaio’s ability to do something untoward for his own benefit.
That said his popularly has actually been dropping like a rock for the last couple years; with 42% disapproving of how he’s doing his job compared to 37% approving.”
He’s losing support among his grey hairs. I don’t think he’s got a chance in 2016. He’s just too expensive and unpredictable, not to mention too costly for Maricopa county. His last election results were uninspiring.
Agreed…..all the way around. He will keep up the charade until the last minute to keep the money rolling in.
Actually Doc, the “safety” part goes a bit further, I think. There was an MCSO posse member (Phillip Grigg) who was recently severely injured in a shooting which came about as the result of a robbery – he got involved when he wasn’t supposed to, as I understand it. Both the officer and the posse member were shot. The officer was released soon after from the hospital and the posse member is still hospitalized in critical condition five weeks later (this robbery happened on New Years Eve). Knowing how these crazy people operate, I’m sure they are milking this for all of the sympathy they can get.
If he’s actually doing that, God help us. He’s already spending many millions of taxpayer dollars on reparations for nefarious activity: http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20140127maricopa-county-arpaio-costs-tallied.html
Two things: I don’t believe anyone is “milking” Grigg’s situation. I don’t find any current information on his condition and the last mention on the sheriff’s website was over a month ago.
Most important…..he did just what any responsible person would have done and that is try and help someone fighting for his life…..literally as it turned out.
Read the story and tell me what you would have done:
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/free/20140104arizona-sheriff-posse-member-shot-identified-brk.html
Oh, and now the county taxpayers are sending money to the posse member who acted on his own: http://www.kpho.com/story/24364358/mcso-gives-15k-to-family-of-wounded-posse-member
Joe Arpaio treats Maricopa County tax money as his own personal wallet. The police officer involved was a City of Phoenix officer, no MCSO officers were involved. The posse member acted on his own, and now Arpaio is sending him money. We gotta get rid of this guy. He’s draining taxpayer resources right and left.
What other safety would they be talking about, Carl? When I say “milking” I mean for sympathy. These people like to portray themselves as victims being persecuted by those not like them.
Carl, you are telling me to read the story? I deliver that newspaper and I LIVE in the city where it happened. Don’t tell me to read the farkin’ story. I KNOW what happened. Police officers are entrusted to take care of these matters. Am I (a woman in Phoenix) supposed to put myself in danger if a shooting occurs right in front of me? Citizens are NOT expected to get involved in officer shootings (and they are probably crazy to do so). I am sorry the officer got shot, but, he was doing his JOB. This person who tried to assist him, did so without any guidance from authorities and now HE is still in critical condition five weeks later.
It’s not taxpayer money. It’s from the MCSO Memorial Fund:
http://www.mcsomemorialfund.com/
You’re not making any sense. If you would use the quote back feature on the blog it would be easier to figure out what you’re referring to.
Well, thank goodness it’s not going to cost more to the taxpayers. Maricopa County residents are already getting screwed with the many millions Arpaio is costing us. What I don’t get though, no MCSO officers were involved and this posse member acted on his own. It makes no sense that he would get MCSO Memorial Fund money when he was not acting under the authority of the county officials.
If anything, he should get getting compensation from the City of Phoenix, whose officer responded and was wounded.
This:
The “safety” inclusion in the prayer obviously as added due to this posse member who lies in a hospital in critical condition. Are they going to need safety to present their “evidence” of Obama’s ineligibility?
You should write the fund and tell them how outraged you are that they are rewarding the irresponsible actions of a good samaritan.
I’m sure they will appreciate hearing from you.
I’m sorry but that doesn’t make a bit of sense to me.
Oh, and in another article about the $15,000 from the Memorial Fund, a quote from a local retired master police officer is showing that they intend to make this sort of thing into a taxpayer funded initiative:
“Although Grigg is a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office posse volunteer, that won’t help him when it comes to benefits.
“For a posse member to be covered by the benefits that are afforded a deputy sheriff that was injured or killed in the line of duty, that posse member has to be under the direction and control of a deputy sheriff in the duties assigned to them by the sheriff,” said Richardson.
Richardson believes more needs to be done for civilians who risk their lives to help first responders.
“There needs to be a remedy. There needs to be a process so that the state can help him for his efforts,” said Richardson.
Richardson said the sheriff’s office is going to try and work with the legislature to bring about change.” – http://www.kpho.com/story/24429295/good-samaritan-law-scrutinized-in-wake-of-officer-shooting
Well, I’m sorry Carl, but the only safety issue they have is in getting shot while doing things like trying to chase robbery suspects. They certainly don’t have any problems with being shot while investigating Barack Obama’s eligibility.
I don’t give a damn whether the posse member gets money, but, honestly, the MCSO wasn’t involved. It makes no sense that the posse member can act on his own and get compensation from a department that wasn’t even involved.
Well I suspect I have you beat on both counts: I lived in the Valley for most of the 66 years since 1958 when my folks moved there from Illinois.
I also delivered the paper a few years later.
You read the story? Grigg didn’t get involved after the shooting. He got involved after the bad guys ran into his truck and then he tried to help the Phoenix officer and that’s when they both got shot. A case can be made that Grigg’s intervention probably saved the officer’s life.
If you had been in his place what would you have done?
He didn’t get “compensation” from the MCSO.
You sure?
There already is a system to provide for officers shot or killed on duty and their families.
If you don’t think it should be extended to posse members then I suggest you contact your state legislators immediately.
“MCSO gives $15K to family of wounded posse member” – http://www.kpho.com/story/24364358/mcso-gives-15k-to-family-of-wounded-posse-member
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office did NOT respond to the robbery. The City of Phoenix Police Department DID. The officer who was shot was on the City of Phoenix police force. MCSO had absolutely NOTHING to do with this situation except that their posse member, a volunteer, acted on his own in a robbery situation.
So you think that the posse members are in physical danger from the investigation of Obama’s eligibility? LMAO
I am merely showing you that someone is trying to make it so that taxpayers are going to pay for this too. Are you under the impression that our sheriff doesn’t cost Maricopa County taxpayers a lot of money? I’ve already referenced articles of at least 44 million dollars and that cost is only expected to rise.
No, obviously he didn’t get involved AFTER the shooting, or he wouldn’t have gotten shot. I explained it that way for brevity’s sake. But, quite honestly, I don’t believe civilians who often have little to no experience should get involved in such things. That this posse member took it upon himself to do so, so be it, now he is laying in a hospital in no better condition than he was the night he arrived there. He wasn’t equipped even if he thought he was. Honestly, had it been me, I’d probably be dead. No, I have no experience or stamina to get involved in such things. I am a citizen, I leave the policing to the police (and quite honestly, if we’re going to have civilians getting involved in all sorts of police matters whenever and wherever they choose, there will be consequences that fall from that, and possibly lawsuits as well.)
Yes, he acted on his own…..as many people would do and in a way that many find admirable.
A private organization – not the MCSO – decided to help him and his family. That is also admirable.
There is no investigation. That’s what you should be laughing at.
I’m well aware of what the Sheriff has done.
Be careful out there. Very, very careful. And hope you don’t ever need to depend on a “civilian” to help you if you’re in trouble.
They think there is.
That private organization is aligned with the MCSO and takes donations from efforst of the MCSO. The MCSO was not a responder to the robbery. The Phoenix Police Department WAS.
Well, I don’t shoot people. The kind of help I need, when I need help, is of the flat tire type. Nobody gets hurt.
Then don’t give them any money if it bothers you that much.
In reading MCSO’s posse mission information, it says that the posse members assist the Sheriff. It does not say they assist with other police departments. This posse member stopped being a posse member during the time he was responding to this situation. He was merely a civilian who chose to assist in a robbery apprehension and got shot. Do you think it’s correct for civilians carrying guns to assist in police work whenever they so choose to? What if they are not equipped? What if they end up in critical condition like this person is? Who pays those bills? What if assisting impedes the police officer’s work? Granted, it didn’t impede in this situation, but i don’t think a civilian should involve themselves in the middle of a police situation.
I know but there isn’t. The MCSO isn’t doing one and the Cold Case Posse is a non-profit charity with no authority to do anything official.
So?
Who said Grigg was carrying a gun?
Then don’t……if you ever confront something trickier than a flat tire.
Have you checked your local UPS Store? The one in the medium-sized town near me has about 4 self-service copiers, one of which is a 7655 (I didn’t find out about this until last month, when I needed to send a fax, or I would’ve joined in the research). If they have Xeroxes here, they’re likely part of a company-wide contract. Iirc, I’ve also read that one of the office supply chains has them in some of the stores where they have “SOHO service centers” (printing,copying, binding, etc.).
No, he was still “a posse member”, he just wasn’t “acting as an agent of the sheriff”: I assume that the posses, like most such volunteer service groups, share a camaraderie that goes beyond their official roles. And such groups will often help out a fellow member, even if they feel he/she made a bad choice, if they think he/she was trying to do the right thing.
No: like any set of human decisions made in comparable circumstances, sometimes they’ll be right, sometimes they’ll be wrong. And sometimes right choices will have bad side-effects, while some people who make bad choices will get lucky.
I have no idea whether Grtigg was “stupidly playing cowboy”, “bravely going to the aid of the cop in distress”, or just “reacting to being unwillingly and unexpectedly caught up in a mess”. And I doubt we’ll get the info we need to definitively determine that from just the news reports.
I’ve criticized, even castigated, Shurf Joe for a lot of things, but I won’t do it this time until I see some credible evidence that he was grandstanding for the public, and not just telling posse members “We’ve got your back”.
bgansel9:” Do you think it’s correct for civilians carrying guns to assist in police work whenever they so choose to?”
In some jurisdictions it is a crime for a civilian not to assist an officer when requested by the officer. I’m not suggesting that was the situation regarding this event. However, I applaud this civilian for helping a law enforcement officer in need.
John doesn’t realize it, but he is an indispensable part of Zullo’s scam. It’s a classic con which depends upon gullible people like John for it to persist.
Mike Zullo, 13 months ago: “The evidence that we have acquired — new-found evidence that we have never made public at any point in time, and we are not going to make public until we have the right opportunity — will convince even the greatest skeptic that this document is 100 percent a forgery.”
Fairy dust. He has to find the right moment to sprinkle fairy dust on us.
Admit it, john. You’re a sucker.
A dupe.
A chump.
A sap.
A tool.
A sitting duck.
An easy mark.
And you’ve been played now, not just once or twice, but for years. Literally years.
Ah, but you can’t admit it. It’s too painful to face the reality, isn’t it?
So it is with the birthers.
I understand what you are trying to say, and normally I would say that anytime Joe gets anywhere near money he figures out a way to misuse it, but in this particular case, I think you’ve got it wrong.
Yes, Grigg was not acting as part of the MCSO posse.
Yes, the action involved the PhxPD, not the MCSO.
Yes, Grigg was under no more obligation than any other member of the public to get involved.
Yes, the MCSO Benevolent Fund has no particular obligation to support Grigg in any way shape or form.
On the other hand, the purpose of the MCSO Benevolent Fund is to be Benevolent.
I expect that, like countless other Benevolent Funds, there is a wide range of discretion for the use of that fund. I have known Police Benevolent Funds to donate to the families of Firemen killed in the line of duty, and to the families of children left orphans after the parents were killed in an accident, and to disaster relief after the Indian Ocean tsunami a few years ago.
Suppose Mr. Grigg was a member of a Church and the Church had a fund-raising bake-sale for him. Is it their business to get involved in that way? Are they somehow taking food out of the mouths of the kids in the orphanage they also support? Why would the church get involved at all, he wasn’t in the act of preaching or proselytizing for the Church was he?
And camels will sprout flippers.
Well, since it was a City of Phoenix situation, perhaps they should take it from a City of Phoenix benevolent fund. Since there was no law enforcement involvement at the county level, I don’t understand why the fund comes from the county unless Sheriff Joe is just taking care of his posse member.
The money isn’t coming from the county!! It’s coming from a private, non-profit charity.
That’s been explained to you several times. Why do you keep misrepresenting what happened?