Current Events and the Psychology of Politics
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Apr 28th, 2011

Summary: The White House produced a copy of President Barack Obama’s detailed Hawaii birth certificate after obtaining a special waiver from the state to make it public. Recent polling had shown two-thirds of Republicans (and smaller percentages of independents and Democrats) believing Obama was born overseas or voicing uncertainty about his place of birth — and celebrity developer Donald Trump, who had taken the lead in sowing doubts about Obama’s birth, was gaining a following as he flirted with a Republican presidential bid. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 28, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that an increase in terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan triggered a sharp rise in the number of civilians killed or wounded there in 2009, pushing South Asia past the Middle East as the top terror region in the world, according to figures compiled by National Counterterrorism Center.


Mar 1st, 2011

Summary: Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee falsely claimed on a radio talk show that President Barack Obama grew up in the African nation of Kenya. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 1, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), on yet another of her many out-of-state political appearances, spoke to Hamilton County Republicans in Cincinnati, Ohio, saying President Obama “has embraced a policy that would have the federal government controlling 48 percent of our economy in just two years’ time. We have to stop him.”


Dec 4th, 2009

Summary: The November 30, 2009 national edition of the Washington Times features a full-page ad by the anti-Obama website ProtectOurLiberty.org, claiming that President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. The ad copy claims that under a 60-year-old British law, President Obama is a citizen of Britain and “is currently also a British protected person and/or a British citizen to this day.” ProtectOurLiberty.org is run by Charles F. Kerchner, Jr., a plaintiff in a birther lawsuit filed against President Obama in New Jersey. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 4, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that New York University journalism professor Charles Seife had written a New York Times op-ed column proposing an interesting resolution to the tight U.S. Senate contest in Minnesota between incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken: cast a lot to determine the winner by chance.


Nov 19th, 2009

Summary: According to a November 2009 Anti-Defamation League Special Report titled “Rage Grows in America: Anti-Government Conspiracies,” a wave of anti-government hostility has swept across the United States since the election of Barack Obama as president, creating a climate of fervor and activism with manifestations ranging from incivility in public forums to acts of intimidation and violence. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 19, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), at a November 2008 forum at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, leveled harsh criticism at the GOP, the lack of intellectual curiosity among some Republican members of Congress, the Bush administration’s handling of nearly every aspect of governance, and the conservative radio voices that dictate the GOP agenda.


Nov 18th, 2009

Summary: Like most of the mainstream media complicit in propagating a superficial, sanitized image of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, CNN has taken the bait. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 18, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iran praised the Iraqi Cabinet for approving a U.S-Iraq status-of-forces agreement and that Michael Hanna, an analyst at the Century Foundation in New York, said a continuing but finite presence of U.S. troops in Iraq could benefit Iran because it provides “retaliatory options” as Tehran pursues a nuclear program opposed by the West.


Sep 18th, 2009

Summary: Politico reports that elements within the GOP are concerned that the “bomb-throwing” Rep. Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, may be inflicting damage on the party’s reputation with her incessant incendiary rhetoric. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the ninth day after losing his 2008 primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman, in line with his focus on national security, reported that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 turned it into a terrorist training ground for jihadists around the world, with militants converging on Iraq to learn increasingly sophisticated insurgency techniques and then exporting those tactics to other hotspots, including Afghanistan, turning the war against terror “global” in a way not foreseen by the Bush administration.