GOP Braves Tropical Storm to Honor Top Birther Donald Trump; Other Birthers Speaking at Republican Convention This Week
LANSING – While the Republican National Committee has cancelled most activity at the outset of its national convention as Tropical Storm Isaac heads toward Tampa, Republicans are not being deterred from holding a dinner to honor Donald Trump, the nation’s top proponent of debunked “birther” conspiracies that question the validity of President Obama’s birth certificate. Along with Trump, many other Republicans who have questioned the president’s birth certificate were scheduled to address the GOP’s convention, and many birthers from across the country will be in attendance. The convention is kicking off on the heels of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney saying in Michigan Friday, “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that I was born and raised.”
U.S. Senate candidate Peter Hoekstra went even beyond most birthers at a Tea Party forum on the campaign trail earlier this year. After lamenting that Republican nominee John McCain didn’t fight the issue of Obama’s birth certificate harder during the 2008, he unveiled his proposal to create a new birther office that would use tax dollars to have the CIA and FBI investigate presidential birth certificates.
“While regular Michigan families are concerned about jobs and the economy, Hoekstra is focused on fringe conspiracy theories about President Obama’s birth certificate,” said Mark Brewer, Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. “Hoekstra’s new federal bureaucracy would use taxpayer money and require the CIA and FBI to investigate the birth certificates of presidential candidates. With Donald Trump and so many other birthers attending the GOP convention, the question is — does the Republican Party, including Michigan’s Republican delegates, agree with Hoekstra’s plan?”
While debate went on over the weekend over whether Romney’s birther comments were a dog-whistle to birthers, an ill-advised joke or both, no one is questioning that Pete Hoekstra was deadly serious about his proposal to create a birther office. In fact, after news broke that Hoekstra proposed the plan at a Tea Party forum, Hoekstra went on CNN to defend the idea and ardently stuck to his position at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference candidate forum later that day. To date, Hoekstra has never backed off his plan to create a birther office.
See Hoekstra’s proposal and defense of the birther office idea here.
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