Ever since Barack Obama released his long form, birthers have said things like these:
Within 24-hours of the release of the long form Certificate of Live Birth on April 27, intelligence agencies from Britain and China to Germany and Russia examined the document and concluded it was a forgery based on the fact that Barack H. Obama Sr.’s race, listed as “African,” was a monumental error, considering that not only the United States, but other English-speaking nations described Africans and those of African descent as either “Negroes” or “blacks” in 1961. – Wayne Madsen
Why was Obama’s father’s race noted as ” AFRICAN ” when official documents issued in 1961 never used the term ” AFRICAN ” to refer to someone’s race but rather used the term ” N-E-G-R-O ” or ” N-E-G-R-O -I-D ” ? – Yahoo Answers
In those days nobody wrote African as a race, it just wasn’t one of the options. It sounds like it would be written today, in the age of political correctness, and not in 1961 when they wrote white or Asian or ‘Negro’. – Orly Taitz
Poor poor Obamatards, there was no political correctness in 1961. Which means that Obama’s birth certificate would list his father’s race as “Negro” not “African”. Fraud. Failed again.
I would have to do some due diligence to see what protocol was in the new state of Hawaii in 1961 but it certainly seems that if Barack Hussein Obama II was born in the lower 48 that even though we all know that his father is an Arab-African his father’s race on the Obama’s birth certificate would have been listed as NEGRO or perhaps BLACK in 1961… Certainly not African as is clearly shown on his official birth certificate.
To use “Caucausian” (sic) to describe the mother and “African” to describe the father is a no-brainer error. Hospitals were and are pretty careful in their terminology – it’s a legal thing1. Political correctness did not exist.
Back in 1961 people of color were called ‘Negroes.’ So how can the Obama ‘birth certificate’ state he is ‘African-American’ when the term wasn’t even used at that time?2
NO document in 1961 EVER listed ethnicity as “African” — it would have said “Negro”.
And there are inconsistencies, such as “African” for father’s race – that term wasn’t used when Obama was born. Until 1980 the word “N e g r o e” was the official term. If something else was used for foreigners, the correct term would have been “Kenyan”, not “African” – Africa is not a nation, there is no African citizenship3.
Because she had just asked something about the “race” field on the birth certificate she was working on, I asked, “Back in 1961, would anyone have ever entered ‘African’ as the race of a parent?” She said, “No, back then they probably would have listed a black person’s race as ‘negro.’” I asked, “So, the word ‘African’ wouldn’t have been used, because that is a nationality and not a race, right?” And she responded, “Right. Nowadays we can use ‘African American’ though.” To which I added, “But, the word ‘African’ by itself has never been used as an entry for race?” And she simply said, “No. Never.” – Dean Haskins
it states “african” which is a term that was never used in those days. Africa is a continent. People from all the countries on that continent with negroid skin and characteristics were call “Negroes” – It was Not a term of derision, as some think it is today. A birth certificate in that year would have said Negro. I bet you can not find one birth certificate from anywhere in the world that lists race as African (except Obama’s). It wasn’t until the 1970’s that the word ‘negro’ was replace by “african american”
“African”? On a birth certificate from that time? Not. A. Chance. Correct forms are in the government blood. Admin clerks freak if the wrong colored ink is used to sign documents. hat word wouldn’t make it past the first chain of editors before being corrected back to the government approved term.
No, “African” would not have been plausible as race in 1961 or any other time. There are millions of people who are not black who are African and whose ancestors have been for hundreds to thousands of years. In 1962 the term used for black as race was Negro. “African” on a document purporting to be official is pretty much clear evidence of something being wrong with that document. It would be like someone offering you an ancient coin with the date of 7 BC.
I think the relevant department would “translate” whatever they see on a foreign BC into whatever the equivalent and legal term is here. In Barry’s case, it would have been Negro. I think “African” on the purported birth certificate is an artifact of 1. the forger’s relative ignorance of things before his birth and 2. the modern, liberal forger’s almost unconscious shying away from the politically-incorrect “Negro.” Remember that school that characterized the photographer’s exhibit of black South Africans as “African-American South Africans”? I think the same level of brain stem “thought” was at work in this forgery.
According to the actual federal coding manual for vital statistics in 1961, they were expecting to receive answers such as “Afro-American” and national groups such as “Mongolian.”
In fact, other Hawaiian birth certificates from 1961 make it clear how open-ended the race response was:
There was never a prescribed list of choices for race. Race is whatever the parents said they were and in 1961 black Kenyans called themselves “African” as evidenced by the 1962 Kenya Census forms.
Birthers speak with great confidence about things they know nothing about, and in the case of Mr. Madsen, just make stuff up.
1Hospitals get parent race information from the informant, usually the mother.
2Barack Obama’s birth certificate does not say that he is “African American.”
3Race and citizenship are distinct categories. I don’t think all those who wrote “Caucasian” were citizens of the Caucasus.
Those birthers would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those pesky facts and their dog!
Had he been described as “Negro” the Birthers would have argued that no Arican would ever self-identify as “Negro.” There is no right answer in the Birther world.
Thanks, Doc. It’s a failed case of right-wing political correctness attempting to trump historical reality.
The guy goes on about how there was no political correctness in 1961, so they would have used the term “black” or “Negro”, but never “African”.
Here’s a question… do people use the term “African” today? Maybe some people self-identify as African, I dunno. About 8 years ago, I knew a lady who was a Kenyan immigrant, and she hated it when people called her “black” or “African-American”. She preferred to be called what she was, a Kenyan.
But self-reporting is irrelevant if we’re following the Birther argument that these racial categorizations come from official sources. They’d like to imply that no official government source would use “African” as a race descriptor in 1961, because that was a different era. Well they don’t do that today either! The usual descriptor, in census figures and surveys and such, is “African-American”, sometimes “Black”, but never “African”.
i see Dean Haskins was a classmate of Sarah Palin.
A Harvard-trained attorney is expected to be familiar with the rules of evidence.
A pdf on the internet is evidence of nothing except a deliberate effort to conceal.
Guilty.
“Birthers speak with great confidence about things they know nothing about”
I wonder how many of those people who were so sure that the term Negro would obviously be used actually KNEW any?
Offtopic and nonsensical. Score!
And it is clear that you are not an attorney of any sort.
1) There is no trial for the President to present any evidence, and the .pdf has never been offered as such by the President. If such evidence was required, we could probably assume he would provide one of those pesky paper copies that have been handled and photographed by the press, and is considered a self authenticating document under the rules of evidence.
2). A failure to produce evidence by an accused party is not evidence of anything, as the accused has no burden to prove anything. The accusing party has the burden to prove their case.
3) Here in the US we operate under the assumption of innocent until proven guilty, not guilty, until proven innocent.
Is that WHY the birthers have been stuck with Taitz, Berg, Apuzzo, etc? Because Harvard-trained lawyers have seen all the stories and wild theories and total LACK of evidence there is against the President? So come on Chef, where are all those brilliant attorneys begging for a chance to bring down the President of the US using the CCP book selling information? BWAHAHAHAHAHA
My, what an ominous article title.
“chef” might actually be a chef. like orly’s a dentist.
At least it didn’t say “final solution.”
The title refers to a previous article also titled “The African Race.”
If, as you say, a PDF on the Internet is “nothing” then the Cold Case Posse has “nothing, ” would you not agree?
However, the signed and sealed verifications in the hands of Arizona Secretary of State Bennett and in the federal district court in Mississippi ARE evidence.
So I would conclude that you have no evidence, but Obama does and that you’re acting irresponsibly.
In The Other Barack, it was noted that one of the first big changes in Nairobi upon the occasion of Kenya gaining its independence was that the signs on colonial establishments that said “No Dogs or Africans” finally came down. If you had asked Barack Obama in 1961 what tribe he was, he’d have said “Luo”. If you had asked him what race he was, he’d have said “African”. In Kenya, there were Africans and Europeans and Asians and Americans. They didn’t use the word “Negro”.
Justlw:
What is Dean Haskins up to nowadays??? His Birther Summit is “expired” and Vattelvision is pretty much empty. Is he still birfing???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
One thing that amuses me about the ‘African’ allegation is what it implies about the hypothetical forger’s mindset.
On the one hand, the Birther posits a forger who was tasked with the job of deceiving a nation, and who was detail-oriented enough to include things like pencil markings and signatures from Lee and Dr. Sinclair.
And that, AT THE SAME TIME, the forger was so overly concerned with being politically correct, even in a 1961-era document, that he chose to write ‘African’ instead of ‘Black.’ And that his superiors who OKed the forgery and placed it online agreed with this decision. Therefore, according to Birthers, blowing the entire operation because they wanted to be unnecessarily racially sensitive while committing fraud.
To believe this requires one to believe that the Obama Administration is both *incredibly* concerned with political correctness to the exclusion of all else, and unabashedly stupid. So naturally, that comports quite well with the image held by Birthers.
Interestingly, Ancestry.com is reporting today that President Obama also has African heritage though his mother.
They have concluded that he is “11th great-grandson of John Punch, the first documented African enslaved for life in American history.”
http://corporate.ancestry.com/press/press-releases/2012/07/ancestry.com-discovers-president-obama-related-to-first-documented-slave-in-america/
lI would assume that the attending physician wrote down “African” for the father’s race. Yes, it wasn’t on the approved vocabulary but doctors are notorious for ignoring or never learning bureaucratic details. The doctor may have written African to differentiate Barack Senior from the common run of American blacks who, back in 1961, had considerably less status than a foreign scholar. The clerk at the Health Dept, seeing “African” written by doctor, probably copied it exactly, not wishing to second-guess whether Barack Senior was black or was maybe a white Rhodesian or South African.
In other words, a trifle without any significance.
How does a pdf on the internet is evidence to conceal. Logic is not your strongest suit. Of course, if the President were to submit the certified copy to the Court, in the unlikely event that he is ordered to do so, the Court will accept the document as prima facie evidence. And nothing the CCP has done addresses the certified original, instead they focused their efforts on the highly compressed PDF and concluded ‘forgery’ based on shaky argument which ignored the common workflows which explain most all of the features.
I am amazed how easily you convict others… You do not really respect our Constitution now do yo?
Yes, but somehow they appear to be proud of that. Ignorance and fear make quite a powerful combination resulting in irresponsible actions and claims.
A Harvard-trained lawyer familiar with the rules of evidence acting in good faith with nothing to hide presents a tangible document to all and sundry.
An internet pdf is inadmissible to the non-gullible.
Beats me; I’m just a simple unfrozen country caveman hyperObot forum lurker.
I think someone (John Woodman?) noted recently that Haskins had “closed up shop,” but that might be just based on the same observation of his complete silence of late that you’ve made.
Oh damn, the Chef’s stuck again. Someone want to give it a nudge?
He has nothing to hide, which is why he made the documents available. They clearly show what the DOH of Hawaii has been stating all along: President Obama was born on US soil. They certified and verified and even provided the SOS of Arizona with a verification.
The document was in fact presented and Savannah Guthrie took a picture clearly showing the seal which is not visible in the B&W copy that was handed out.
Such fail… And yet you are gullible enough to convict based on the PDF? Such foolishness that totally runs against our Nation’s Constitution and Laws.
You have shown yourself what you represent and it ain’t pretty. Time to look in the mirror my friend and wonder why you have allowed yourself to be manipulated by such ignorance and fear.
A good indicator of a closed mind.
So Chef, if you consider the PDF to be inadmissible then you also must accept that the Cold Case Posse was involved in a gullible and foolish effort.
As to the Cold Case Posse, I have shown how most of their ‘indicators’ of forgery can more easily be explained by common workflow and how they have failed to explain why a forger would separate the text over a background and bitmap layer.
Care to explore or does your fear and ignorance not allow you to look at the facts?
I’d understand.
What is he supposed to do fool? Send each one of you idiots a personally autographed physical copy? Where does the law or simple common sense require anyone to do that in non-legal proceedings? And why would he bother when you all hate him anyway and wouldn’t accept anything he offers?
How more completely shameless can you get, chef?
Don’t get him started…
It’s a good thing the President hasn’t been sending pdf documents to court cases as evidence then, wouldn’t you agree Chef?
Oh wait, that’s the birfoons. never mind.
Of course it is. Whoever tried to enter the pdf alone, or testimony about the pdf, into evidence anywhere? Oh, that would be…
And how, pray tell, would one present such “a tangible document to all and sundry”?
Yay for Squeeky!
Oh, and yay for Justlw, too!
“Conceal” by posting something on the internet? A strange way to “conceal!”
The two letters of Verification from the Hawai’i Registrar of Vital Statistics, the two Media Releases confirming authenticity of the Obama birth certificate from former Director of Health Dr. Chiyome Fukino and the media release of current Director of Health Loretta Fuddy are all corroborating “evidence” and under Federal Rule of Evidence 1005, a copy of a birth certificate that contains the registrar’s signature and the authorizing Seal shall be considered the same as the original document. The “Harvard trained attorney” has TWO such copies at his disposal but you can’t put a hard copy on the internet for people to see, it has to be scanned.
Federal Rule of Evidence 1005:
Copies of Public Records to Prove Content
The proponent may use a copy to prove the content of an official record — or of a document that was recorded or filed in a public office as authorized by law — if these conditions are met: the record or document is otherwise admissible; and the copy is certified as correct in accordance with Rule 902(4) [self-authentification] or is testified to be correct by a witness who has compared it with the original. [Dr. Fukino, Dr. Onaka, Lorretta Fuddy]. If no such copy can be obtained by reasonable diligence, then the proponent may use other evidence to prove the content.
But a PDF on the Internet is good enough that self-proclaimed document experts can credibly call it a forgery?
We need no stinking rules of evidence…
Poor birthers.
Didn’t Orly Taitz try to get a t-shirt admitted as evidence?
But judges (Malihi in Georgia, the Indiana Court of Appeals in Ankeny v Daniels, and the federal judge in Tatiz v Mississippi Democratic Paty) have already accepted pdf versions of the President’s birth certificate. I guess those judges are “gullible.”
I guess “Chef” is unaware of the fact that BIRTHERS have introduced pdf versions of the President’s birth certificate into evidence and they have accepted it as valid and authentic because they wanted to use the birth certificate to prove that the President is ineligible because his father was born in Kenya, according to what’s on the birth certificate.
Obama actually did just that: during the previous campaign his paper COLB straight from Hawaii was at the Chicago campaign office available for both all and sundry to inspect personally. No birfoon was interested.
Umm, could you kindly explain how postin a PDF on the internet is “evidence of fraud?”
The “thought process” in Birtherstan is a thing of wonder!
My first clue that Orly wasn’t just your average lawyer was her citing Wikipedia in the Keyes lawsuit.
“Obama actually did just that: during the previous campaign his paper COLB straight from Hawaii was at the Chicago campaign office available for both all and sundry to inspect personally. No birfoon was interested.” — Joe Acerbic
Wonderful. We have a precedent. Let me know when he does it with the long form.
Adjourned.
Well, according to their last quarter FEC filings, the Article II Super Duper Extra Crispy Jumbo Bucket of PAC gave Dean Haskins $240 for “Radio Advertising”.
The COLB is the official birth certificate that would be presented to court as evidence IF a judge asked for one. Only a birfoonish make believe lawyer would not know that.
PatrickMc:
OH Tee Hee! Tee Hee! $240 might buy a few after-midnight spots on a Bummfuch, West Virginia Holy-Roller AM Radio Station, sandwiched in between the $5.00 bottle of Magic Prayer Water and the Grit Magazine commercials. Oh, how Dean’s ego must be taking a hit.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The COLB is a legal birth certificate. Any court would accept it. The fact that irrational people motivated by blind political ideology–or worse, racism–cannot accept this fact and dishonestly demand ever escalating levels of proof they know they would never accept means nothing.
You have received the evidence both a court and a rational, honest person would accept. This ongoing charade simply self exposes your own lack of integrity and character.
Sure. Post your contact information. Do you get deliveries under the bridge?
He did. Savannah Guthrie even photographed the document and touched the seal.
Such fools…
April 27, 2011. Yeah, just the once. I know that’s disappointing, but things have changed since the Jacksonian era. No big block of cheese, either.
I think the overriding principle here is: “ordinary claims require ordinary proof.”
The president claims he was born in the city where his parents lived, and has provided ample proof of that claim.
It is one of the responses in the current federal coding manual for vital statistics.
Of one thing we can be sure after all of the birther investigations of President Obama’s birth certificate: if Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery, the forger is far and away smarter than any birther on the planet.
No, absolutely not. Demographic information is obtained from the parent, typically the mother, who is responsible for certifying that part of the certificate.
In the 1955 paper in the Hawaii Medical Journal by Bennett and Tokuyama, it is stated:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/55625290/Vital-Records-in-Hawaii
The Chef is doing a very good job of asymmetric warfare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymetrical_warfare
Fun law fact: Goal Post Transfer is a rarely successful procedure in the U.S. legal system and is believed to be taught as part of the regular curriculum only at The Howard Taft School of Law, Botched Root Canals and Foreclosure Rescue Fraud.
We are literally back at the same spot we were in 2008 when the COLB was available in Chicago. Good job birthers, you have wasted the time of over 100 courts to prove that the COLB is real and contained all Information you needed.
How does it feel to be so completely defeated by reality?
You have amassed what might be the worst win/loss record in judicial history.
You’re confusing Obama and Romney; Romney went to Harvard Law School too, where he got a Juris Doctor degree jointly with his Harvard Business degree. I think what you meant to say, was that ” A Harvard-trained lawyer familiar with the rules of politics acting in good faith with nothing to hide presents ALL of his income tax records to all and sundry.”
Obama will assuredly be willing to present all the legal proof required to REMAIN the President. Romney is willing to not win the Presidency, by standing on his legal refusal to show us his tax statements. Both are doing only what the law requires.
So by Birther reckoning, you and Romney “win”.
Squeeky,
Deano (damning wth faint praise I know) always struck me as one of the more rational of the Brrfer scammers.
IMHO, (worth what you paid for it on the Internet) Deano has made a cost-benefit analysis and decided that the work required to squeeze the ever shrinking pool of money from the gullible simlply doesn’t make it worthwhile continuing the graft.
With Arpaio and the escalating WND smear campaign, the ART2PAC, Mad Old Orly etc all trying to scam the ever shrinking pool of the true believer there simply isn’t room for that profitable a business for Deano.
Better to skip town and look for the next big thing……Hey maybe he and He Lucas Smith can open a parlor together…. 😎
I guess even birther grifting has to have it’s winners and losers.
Chef is using the classic creationist method. As long as there is one link missing, all the facts must be ignored. With birthers, as long as one of their inane demands has not been met, none of those that have been matter.
Just a comment on the possibility of “Mongolian”. Though we think of Mongolian as a nationality today, in 1961 is was a “common” race descriptor for Asian of all kinds, including American Indians.
There were ‘understood’ to be three biological races: Caucausoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid.
Today race is understood as a social construct, not a biological one. That was not always the case.
Your fingers mistyped. The fourth category was “Asians”, not “Americans.” The rest of your post was spot on.
Now I’m doing it too. The fourth category was “Arab”.
No need. Hawaii has spoke and settled the matter. Obama is the only president who has documented his birth on US soil.
I think the Kenyans made a big distinction between Americans and their European colonizers. Remember that an American, Betty Mooney, is the one who arranged for Barack Sr. to come to Hawaii. I’m stickin’ with my story.
Arab can be fifth, though I think an African Muslim would be known only as an African. Example: Onyango (Hussein) Obama, the President’s paternal grandfather. “Arab is a race” plays into that “Obama is 5/7ths Arab” thingy.
On the other hand, if Chef cooks like she thinks, stay away from the food.
Why don’t you write to the White House and ask to see it?
Of course, the State of Hawaii has already vouched for its authenticity multiple times, but by all mean don’t let pesky facts such as that deter you.
Chef:
“Obama actually did just that: during the previous campaign his paper COLB straight from Hawaii was at the Chicago campaign office available for both all and sundry to inspect personally. No birfoon was interested.” — Joe Acerbic
Wonderful. We have a precedent. Let me know when he does it with the long form.
Adjourned.
How do you know he hasn’t already? I mean, have you gone to the White House and seen? You might be surprised to find it framed right there in the front entryway.
I thought Chef joined the Super Adventure Club, not the birthers.
Doc did a masterful job documenting the total nonsense that multiple birthers had spewed trying to discredit “African” as a valid identification of race by Obama . Rather than engage the issue, Chef served up spam, laced with ex-lax. I don’t know why anyone wants to sample such fare.
I think Doc’s headline is exactly right–he’s written the final chapter on this topic.
You can expect a copy in his Presidential Library.
You will visit his Library, won’t you?
Did anyone else catch that when informed that Obama’s BC had been on display, Chef immediately responds with a demand for the LFBC? LOL! It’s a mini-birfer replay!
Trained seals lookin’ for raised seals, these birfers spin right ’round, baby, right ’round, like an echo, baby, right ’round, right ’round … !
And it wasn’t even the name brand Spam, it was that garbage Always-Save stuff!
+10 😀
There is no reason to assume this. The attending physician would not be the one to make that distinction.
The procedure is that the form is filled in by the Mother or Father; or by the Hospital Registrar (or whatever, possibly the Attending Physician, but probably not) after an interview with the Father or Mother.
In other word, the word “African” is there because that is what Obama Sr. (or Stanley Ann) gave as an answer. Nobody had to assume anything; they just had to transcribe the answers given by the parents, whatever that answer is.
Grit Magazine!
Does that still exist?
Wow. I hadn’t heard of it for 40 years at least. I remember it as a tabloid.
I think you’re absolutely spot on here; he is also the only birfer activist I know of to cut losses and let lie.
He’s also the only one to recognize the scope of a gathering embarrassment and drop it … getting a few birfer bux, and denying us our bit of fun. 🙁
He was smart enough to avoid blowing what few proceeds he had gleaned.
He demonstrated a capacity to get outside of his own headspace.
If I am not giving him too much credit here, then I conclude he simply wasn’t good birfer material! 😉
It goes beyond that; hospital personnel are barred from determining personal information.
Doctors don’t fill out certificates … they sign them once completed.
All my life, every visit to any medical facility for any reason has begun with myself or my guardian self-reporting our entire life story, medical history, and insurance situation. Only then did any sort of care commence. Same goes for optometrists, dentists, and …. veterinarians!
“The President released his long form birth certificate on April 27, 2011, and posted a copy on the White House Web site. The certificate confirms the President’s birth in Honolulu Hawaii.” — United States District Court for the District Of Columbia, Taitz v Ruemmler 11-cv-421 RCL
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_11-cv-01421/pdf/USCOURTS-dcd-1_11-cv-01421-0.pdf
The real court worked quite differently from the one in your imagination, didn’t it Chef?
Keith:
Yes, there is still a Grit Magazine. It is very popular in Texas. It has changed up though. My father has a bunch of comic books from the old timey days in 196x whatever, and there were these ads on the back for Grit Magazine. And he said he used to sell them.
Which makes me remember something else my father said once, when I was about 6 or 7, and I asked him what my shoes were made out of. He said “dead gooses”, and then he started singing “half the fun of having feet is dead goose shoes.” Sooo, I started crying because of all the dead gooses, and I took my shoes off and said I would just only wear socks the rest of my life. Then he told me he just made that up fool me, and the song was really about Red Goose Shoes.
All of which just now came to me out of nowhere.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I was taught that in school, but in 1961 the federal government wasn’t tabulating race that way.
OK, fine, so either or both of the parents decided to categorize Obama Senior as “African”. Same result: Dept of Health does not second-guess what racial term ought to be used, especially since the Dept of Health clerk knows no personal info about Obama Senior.
As for the internet image as “evidence”. Yes, an internet image is not legal evidence, only the paper certificate with the impression seal is. I figure having the Hawaiian Health Dept run off enough copies – and putting the impression seal on each of them – for every American voter, would (including the postage) cost only as much as the Pentagon spends in one week and probably create more than a thousand fulltime jobs for the duration of the project. And, by the way, Romney can get his backers to spend an equivalent amount sending all the votes copies of his tax returns.
Until that happens, I am satisfied with the fact that two Governors of Hawaii (one a Republican), the Director of the Hawaii Health Dept (also a Republican), the supervisor of the Office of Vital Records, the Hawaii Secretary of State and, most recently, the Assistant Attorney-General of Hawaii have all made public attestations that the Obama birth certificate is the Real Deal. So far no court has upheld a challenge to that birth certificate.
[Off-topic message deleted. Doc]
Bernard,
According to the Hawaii Department of Health, the first copy is $10, and each additional copy is $4 (when ordered at the same time). So, take the 217,342,419 eligible voters in America (2010 estimate), and you get $869,369,688 in the cost of the birth certificates. Now, add in another $.44 cents (you can probably get a bulk rate, but I don’t know what that would be) per certificate, and you get an additional 95,630,664.36, giving you a total of $965,000,352.36
Barack Obama spent last campaign somewhere around 500 million.
That would mean that in order for Barack Obama to prove that he’s eligible to the satisfaction of the birthers, that he’d have to spend just on birth certificates about twice as much as the most expensive presidential campaign in the history of the United States in order to prove that he’s eligible for the Presidency. And then the birthers would just turn around and say that it’s not even a birth certificate, because it’s a computer printout.
I hate to rabble when writing a comment, but really hate it more in an article that I read. The bias overtones of birther articles and arguments border on the side of insensitive.
Possibly, but compared to what the Pentagon spends (or should be speding) it’s money on, printing out thousands of birth certificates would be a gross waste of time, money, and resources. Plus the birthers still would find a reason why it’s a “fraud” or somehow “inadmissible.”
I worked out how this can be done more cost effectively:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2008/12/obama-announces-national-natural-born-day/
And it would be money well-spent … sending an interesting-yet-unrequested trinket to the majority of voters (i.e., landfill-clogging spam!), and paper that would bounce right off of the few actual birthers (resulting in more landfill).
How long would it take HI to produce 217.3M copies? LOL!
Still, it would be fun to have birthers surrounded by people discussing the crazy thing that showed up in the mail yesterday.
Could save postage by partnering with bulk mail companies. Fingerhut? Val•Pak? Whoever it is that send out coupons every Tuesday?
The “5/7ths Arab thingy” is another birther fabrication, although not as common as the “African is not a race” fabrication.
However, there is a very long history of Arab trade and settlement along the East African coast that resulted in a small population that strongly identifies itself as Arab. (In addition to the Arab population there was also strong Persian influence in Zanzibar that resulted in a “Shirazi” identity.) In Kenya, the Arab population was concentrated in Mombasa and Lamu. As Doc’s link to the census form shows, these were identified in the 1962 census as a separate racial group. Because they were so few in numbers, they were included in an “Other” classification or even combined with the “Asian” population when census results were analyzed.
Your point that a Muslim African would not be considered Arab is correct.
And don’t forget the labor needed to stuff all those envelopes. The extra supplies that would have to be ordered, and the requirement that they ALL be initialed by hand by Dr Onaka clearly or they can’t be real in the birther minds.
Went through this same exercise 4 years ago on the Washington Independent with some birthers about the COLB. Must be election season!
“Race and citizenship are distinct categories. I don’t think all those who wrote “Caucasian” were citizens of the Caucasus.”
In Russia it is different. But everyone in Southern Russia would consider Orly Taitz Caucasian.
There is another problem. This thing is connected to an election. You’d expect the other candidates to also produce the same birth certificate. If a US citizen at birth but born abroad is eligible, would he have to present the French, Russian, Japanese … birth certificate? There would obviously have to be a certified translation. For each copy, since you want it to have the same legal value as Obama’s.
Being a translator myself, I am not complaining. But the question is who pays for this silliness? If the candidate is supposed to do it, that would mean no candidate born abroad could run for a minor party.
I sense a Supreme Court case coming up.
You forgot to add the cost of adding a copy of the forensic document examiner’s report debunking each potential gripe someone might have with anything a layperson could consider an “anomaly”. I assume 300 pages will suffice if you leave out the looniest percentile of the birthers.
(“1.3.6.9.8.5.4.3.1 The third smudge on the left of the first occurence of the letter “a” in the second occurrence of the word “Hawaii” is due to either (a) … or (y) …, except if a Toranaga X19 scanner from before June 1977 was used, in which case…”)
Costs will include copying 300 pages plus the additional surcharge for the added weight.
It boils down to this: Back in 2007 or 2008, Barack Obama got the standard (short) birth certificate from Hawaii – the State of Hawaii sends out the short form as the replacement certificate to EVERYBODY and under Hawaiian law that short form is as good evidence as the original or the long form, and (I checked on this) the State ordinarily doesn’t issue a long form replacement copy without a court order to do so. The short form was introduced in response to (1) the need to computerize and simplify birth cert records, and (2) out of consideration for federal privacy laws that regarded some of the questions & answers on the old long forms (such as the mother’s last day of employment and the results of a VD test and the parents’ occupations) as troublesome, and (3) general ease of use and sparing the trees. The short form is enough to get a passport or enlist in the Army or just about anything a full scale birth certificate would be used for.
Last year, in response to an avalanche of queries about Obama’s birth records – from strangers who wouldn’t be entitled to such information in any situation – and a very direct request from the President, the Hawaii Dept of Health bent its own rules and printed up copies of the original 1961 birth certificate signed by Mama Obama and the attending physician. Under a federal law (passed under Bush), this photocopy (or image from microfilm or some such) was printed on security paper that prevents alterations (that’s the green basketweave pattern as seen on this website page). The Hawaii Health Dept sent these copies to the White House. Somebody there posted the image on the White House website.
Because of the security paper pattern, the image on the internet gives weird readings when evaluated by Photoshop or similar software; that was one of the intended purposes of the security paper, to prevent counterfeiting of the birth certificates. (Oddly, the Photoshop readings caused by the security paper used are so extreme that it seems impossible that anyone could, using regular paper, produce something that would register such extreme readings. Even the people relying on Photoshop have not produced by themselves a document with such extreme readings. Nor have they compared the Obama b/c with anyone else’s b/c printed on the same kind of security paper.) The original prints received directly from the Hawaii Health Dept have the proper impression seal verifying their authenticity. People have examined the original prints at the White House and are satisfied that the White House copy is the real deal.
Additionally, a bundle of Hawaiian officials, including Republicans and including those directly connected with the birth certificate files, have publicly attested to the authenticity of the Obama birth certificates (both short and long).
Another pretended bit of detective work on the Obama b/c consists in insisting that several different typewriters were used on the birth certificate. To do this, the amateur Sherlocks have taken individual words apart – theorizing that the different letters in a single word were done on a multitude of typewriters, and this for nearly every word typed on the Obama b/c. This is completely ridiculous. Who would try to fabricate a document that way??!
At the same time, some of the “birfers” have produced photos, of fairly low quality, that purport to be African birth certificates for the Prez. Except they’re all different from each other, and sometimes different from basic facts of Kenyan history and geography (e.g., Mombasa is on an island at the extreme opposite end of Kenya from the family village of Papa Obama, and it appears that it was not officially part of Kenya until AFTER the Prez was born). Usually these purported Kenya documents don’t resemble real Kenya documents and invariably we have only one, very poor quality, photo (not photocopy) of each document – not a certified copy as we do with the Hawaiian b/c. So far not a single one of these pretended African birth certificates has been subjected to any of the tests that birthers claim to have done with the Hawaiian b/c. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why a very pregnant Ann Dunham Obama would spend more than a full day in airplanes (this would be back in 1961) to fly to a wretched Third World country to have her baby in Kenya and then rush him back to the US on the same sort of airplanes.
Frankly, there’s more and stronger evidence that Barack Obama II was born in the US than there is for, say, George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.
The actual easiest way and one that could both be legally sufficient as well as reducing significantly in cost in addition to freaking the cack out of Birfoons would be to amend the Hawai’in law to permit digitally signed electronic BC forms to be issued.
Hawai’i already uses at least one electronic digital signature suite that I am aware of (CoSign) so they already COULD do this.
Digitally signed forms are already accepted by state and fedral government as equally binding as physical so no real technical issues there.
Let the wonderdogs of Mara Zebest and Co try and dispute that legality and veracity then, they would be sued into oblivion by the various vendors…… 😎
Ah yes, the Washington Independent. I schooled many a birther back in those days. It says really bad things about birthers and birtherism that they’re repeating the same lies now as they were back then.
The price actually includes the labor and expenses (envelopes, postage) to send them out.
Some jurisdictions do charge for regular mailing costs, but I think most include the cost of mailing. I know for the applications I’ve filled out for my kid’s BCs, there was no difference between the fee for picking them up in person vs receiving by mail. Once I was picking up a copy of our marriage license in person, and they had technical issues after I’d already made the payment. I had to get to work, so I asked if it could just be mailed to me.
Our Constitution holds that a person is innocent until proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt.
Does not apply to conservatives, birthers, red states, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee.
Remind me never to eat anything you prepared.
That’s about the size of it.
In some states, a portion of the price of a birth certificate goes into an “improvement fund” that is used to pay for new software, which bought me more than a few Happy Meals.
If you order it online through VitalChek, they rake off a good deal too.
When I’ve gotten a receipt with our marriage certificate certified copies, they included a breakdown of where the fees went. There were at least a couple of different “improvement funds” and I recall a domestic violence prevention fund. I haven’t seen a similar breakdown with the receipts I received with my kid’s birth certificates.
Appropos of nothing, I would take this moment to suggest that people reading this should dig up, or if necessary buy replacement, copies of their birth certificate and use them to get a passport. Yes, a passport costs money but … it serves as both physical identification (like a drivers license) and proof of citizenship (like a birth certificate), in one document — and that may come in handy in the Elections that are 97 days away. Additionally, once you have a US passport, if you ever need to replace it you will not have to provide your proof of citizenship again; the Passport Office will verify your US citizenship by referring to the records of your previous passport.
My first job was as a passport agent, and, yes, Obama’s short form birth certificate is sufficient to have gotten him a US passport.
In addition to all that excellent advice, it’s really a painful roll of the dice to put it off until you “need” a passport. Just get one, and check it off your bucket list! One less thing, y’know?
Thanks for all the research you do, Doc. It’s appreciated!
I’d just add that these days you can get a separate ID card along with your passport, and the cost is not that much more. The ID card can be use to travel to Mexico or Canada, but not for other international travel — but the advantage is that you can carry the ID card in your wallet, and have the passport in reserve in case the ID card is damaged or lost.
But it is all rather pricey nowadays. Not a viable solution for the type of voters who don’t have drivers licenses because they are too poor to afford a car.
That’s the passport card. It was $20 when I got mine, but that was as a “renewal” because I already had a passport.
I’ve heard some US citizens of Mexican ancestry have taken to carrying one around in Arizona, just in case of a traffic stop that could turn into what’s effectively an immigration sweep.
It’s useful for more than just land travel to Mexico or Canada. It’s also valid for sea travel to any country that’s part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. For a “closed loop” (begin and end at the same port) cruise, one can theoretically use a US birth certificate coupled with a photo ID, but that may not work with someone married who adopted a name change. I’d personally feel uncomfortable risking the loss of a birth certificate which could be used in identity theft. A passport card can also be used for non closed loop cruises. However, a full passport is recommended with the chance that someone needs to fly back home in case of emergency.
Reality? We don’t need no stinkin reality!
It wouldn’t surprize me if most of the Birfers were also Cretinist..er….Creationists. The tactics and degree of stupidity match up pretty well.
Same Crap, Different Conspiracy.
The Tea Party Is a Religious Movement
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/scott-galupo/2011/08/17/the-tea-party-is-a-religious-movement