In response to my article, Flags in Hawaii, blogger Butterdezillion, takes me to task for a “rush” job and not getting the facts right in my critique of her page, Red Flags in Hawaii. This blog is all about getting the facts right, and I’m not about to leave misinformation floating about my articles. So let’s look at the criticism and see what’s what. So once again, into the fray (Butterdezillion’s comments indented and in italics). I will try to give some context so as to minimize the need to refer back to the two articles linked above, but you may have to go there eventually to follow everything.
The DOH did not have their Admin Rules posted until on or about Nov 5, 2009, so you were wrong about that.
As I pointed out in my original article (which BZ inexplicably missed) : “a commenter on this blog referred to them, [the Administrative Rules] including the hyperlink last May, 2009.” The May 2009 comment included citations from sections 11-120-2 and 11-120-4 of the rules. Now it’s simply impossible for someone to comment on a set of rules in May of 2009, cite their contents, and provide a hyperlink to them, if they were not posted until November. Another commenter on this blog mentioned and hyperlinked to the rules back in January of 2009! They were also in my research notes bookmarks (last updated March 14, 2009). So quit the foolishness. They’ve been on the State web site for at least a year and you could have found them easily.
Birth index includes name, gender, and type of event. It doesn’t include place of birth. Fukino’s statement was forbidden.
Again, you ignore what I wrote. Since ALL births in 1961 registered by the state were births in Hawaii, saying Barack Obama was born in Hawaii is logically the same thing as saying he was in the birth index. Since you claim to be familiar with the regulations concerning birth registrations, you know this is true (although you probably don’t have a copy of the regulations in effect in 1961 because they aren’t on the Internet). It is clear, at least to me, that Fukino was carefully avoiding disclosing anything beyond what was in the birth index, an index of persons born in Hawaii.
Nobody has to go to Hawaii to get a response to UIPA. This is so laughable it’s ridiculous. That’s why I was able to post dozens of UIPA responses.
In your email to the state (a hyperlink I followed) you cited HRS 92F-12 (a) (1) and the DoH’s refusal to comply with it. I correctly pointed out that HRS 92F-12 (a) (1) does not require the state to send you copies, only that the record be available for inspection at the agency office during normal business hours that there is a facility for you to copy them. There may be other regulations that require someone to send these to you, but the citation you relied upon requires public inspection at the DoH building. That is, your claim that the DoH’s actions were criminal is not factual. But of course, you could have gotten those particular regulations off the web if you had looked for them, and saved yourself and everyone else a lot of trouble.
I didn’t make up the fact that a denial of access to a record is confirmation of its existence. I gave the OIP Opinion Letters which specifically state this.
One reason I dismissed it out of hand is because of its logical absurdity. But let’s follow your sources and see what happens. I followed your so-called link to the OIP Interpretation. First, reading the OIP’s painfully blurry cover letter, I see: “The DOH’s interpretation of the UIPA and Section 338-18, H. R. S. are correct.” But where is the Interpretation itself? It’s not there. So much for following YOUR hyperlinks. Were you referring to the OIP Opinion you mention on another page? Or was it this OIP Opinion you linked to on another page? I certainly don’t know.
[Updated]
Following a comment by Butterdezillion on this blog, I have made an informed guess as to which opinion letter was being referenced. That letter to the Honolulu Police Department informs the Department how to respond to a request where the response that there is no record is itself a disclosure. The Opinion does not allow anyone to conclude what a non-response in some other words might be interpreted. This is the most common fallacy of formal logic that pervades much of birther thinking, the fallacy of denying the antecedent.
Until Butterdezillion properly states what the “interpretation” is and why this leads to the conclusion that Obama’s record was amended, there’s not much more that can be said.
The fact that Hawaii officials have said they don’t have to report known forgery is absolutely significant to anybody who cares about the law. If you find it insignificant it says something about you.
Context please. It is insignificant to this discussion because there was no forgery in the first place.
I gave the Administrative Rules which say that amended certificates lose their prima facie evidentiary value.
I was hasty, since the Obama COLB clearly states that it prima facie evidence. Indeed perhaps you “got a technical on me” on this one. The law (not administrative rule) leaves some opening to question a delayed or amended record. Again, this is moot because Obama’s record is neither delayed nor amended according to the COLB, and the lack of any evidence to the contrary.
They didn’t stop issuing long-form certificates in 2001. In fact, the revision to what they call a “Certificate of Live Birth” which excludes almost everything is dated October 2008. And you obviously didn’t follow the whole bit about rules changes requiring a public hearing and official approval. Sigh.
I refer readers back to my article from June 2009, Obama Birth Certificate Official, citing Janice Okubo’s remark that the Health Department went paperless in 2001. Okubo told the Honululu Advertiser newspaper:
The state Department of Health no longer issues copies of paper birth certificates as was done in the past, said spokeswoman Janice Okubo.
The department only issues “certifications” of live births, and that is the “official birth certificate” issued by the state of Hawaii, she said.
And, it’s only available in electronic form.
Okubo explained that the Health Department went paperless in 2001.
It certainly seems clear to me that Okubo’s statement implies that the so-called long form stopped being issued in 2001. BZ refers to a “July 11 addendum” through a hyperlink. When I originally clicked on it, I assumed that the link was wrong since it didn’t go to any official source, but rather to the birther WorldNetDaily publisher Joseph Farah’s blog, the Western Journalism.com. The information on that page is from an anonymous person claiming to be a CIA investigator. Are you pretending that this is “fact” or “evidence”? This so-called report was investigated and found to be a fake, reported here back in July 2009 in my article: Clearing the smoke, or blowing more smoke?
HRS 338-17 says that the evidentiary value of an amended certificate is to be determined by an administrative or judicial body or person WHEN SUCH IS PRESENTED AS EVIDENCE. Fukino keeps the records; Obama doesn’t present his certificate to her as evidence.
I’m really not sure what you are saying here. Fukino is not an “administrative or judicial” body. There is no amended certificate in the first place. You really need to try to write complete thoughts.
And the presumption that the information contained on a certificate is true is what is meant by “prima facie evidence”. An amended record no longer counts as prima facie evidence. This means that the burden of proof is on the person who claims that what is on the certificate is true.
[Teach, don’t start a paragraph with “and”.] I’m still waiting for a cogent argument that there ever was an amended certificate. Your comment about “burden of proof” is not supported by the law.
The law clearly states that records created or maintained for the purpose of making information public MUST be disclosed. The DOH can say what it wants, but the law is the law. That is my whole point.
One may ask what your qualifications are to make this judgment, but I must point out that the letter you linked to from the OPI said that the DOH interpretation of the law was correct.
It wasn’t the invoices and receipts that the DOH destroyed. They destroyed the UIPA requests, which they are required to keep for 2 years. Again, you didn’t even get the basic facts of what I was saying correct.
Hold on there. If it wasn’t invoices that were destroyed, why did you title a section “The DOH has deleted documents required to be stored for at least 2 years.” and under it list “UIPA request or invoice.” Could you try to be less confusing in your writing? As to the substance of your complaint, since it consists solely of unverifiable non-public communications, it’s hard to respond to all the hypothetical possibilities. However, one cannot conclude that the UIPA requests (assuming they were properly filed) were destroyed. They just said there was nothing responsive (which may be because they didn’t find your request proper).
Within a week of Donofrio saying he would initiate OIP disciplinary proceedings against Fukino and Okubo the OIP director was offered a job by the semi-governmental company for which Fukino is a director. Those are the facts. You refuse to address them.
And did Donofrio initiate such a proceeding? I don’t remember that he did, so we can see just how serious that was. I can see no reason why Fukino would have the slightest concern about a crank like Donofrio saying saying on his blog that he was going to file some baseless complaint. Conspiracy theorists see connections in everything; there is nothing to address. Even Donofrio abandoned Terri K and this Hawaii witch hunt.
And my allegatons [sic] are true enough that the Ombudsman’s Office refused to investigate, saying that they can’t investigate crimes.
Say what? If you alleged crimes, then the response is “we don’t investigate crimes”. That is not confirmation that what you alleged was true (or a crime).
I’m sure you rushed through your “analysis”. As a teacher I can tell you that Bloom’s taxonomy matters. You can’t do decent analysis without a proper grasp of the facts. I suggest you go back through and make sure you get the facts straight and try again.
I think my rush job turned out pretty well.
With all due respect to both sides, all of this is 100% irrelevant to anything that matters to anyone. If any thinking person were to make a list of the top 500 issues that face mankind, the policies of the Hawaiian DOH as regards birth records would place at #156,872.
See update to main article.
This web site is here to help the weak.
If you had looked at my documentation you would know that Title 11 – which was referenced in the post and in your resources – is not the same thing as “Public Health Regulations”, which was not posted online until around Nov 5, 2009.
You are rushing, and you are not getting accurate facts and statements. Before you make any more embarrassing statements which reveal that you’re not paying attention to details, please take a breath, slow down, and actually read what I’ve got.
They are beyond help. I know that you believe in the eternal possibility of redemption, Doc, but even Jebus had to decide where to best invest his efforts.
Nowhere is index data referred to as an index of people born in Hawaii.
I could put my name on a blank birth certificate today and send it in with no claim of birthplace and there would be index data for me in a couple days. It would be in the “Pending” index. Fukino claims that she is unable to say WHICH index a name comes from because that would reveal what is or isn’t on the BC.
There are names we know are on the Hawaiian Birth Index which Okubo which Okubo denied exist on that index. She didn’t even look at the index. She supposedly looked up all vital records index data for anybody with surname of Obama or Dunham and failed to mention the marriage index for BHO and Ann Dunham, as well as the death index for Madelyn and Ann Dunham. She’s not even looking at the records. She’s shooting from the hip.
But if they’ve got ANY documents in their office with a name on it – regardless of what else is on the document – she’s got index data for a person.
butterdezillion: I could put my name on a blank birth certificate today and send it in with no claim of birthplace and there would be index data for me in a couple days.
That is totally silly.
No one cares
The issue is moot.
It’s irrelevant.
It makes no difference.
It matters not.
It is of no consequence.
The case is closed.
Don’t you get it?
Your understanding of what UIPA requires is woefully ignorant. Have you read UIPA and the OIP Booklet which describes the process agencies must follow when responding to UIPA requests? Records can be in any form, and the requestor says what form they would like to receive it in. It’s always a copy, but whether it would be electronic, photocopied, or otherwise is the only issue.
Again, your responses are showing your ignorance really, really badly.
I copied this off your web site:
If you are citing something else, cite it.
“That is totally silly.”
Her whole point is totally silly, her view will go to the trash can so what did she accomplish other than being silly? Birthers are wierd and love to make up crap as BZ did with her “ammended” crap. You cannot correct an idiot! Obama is and has been the president for over a year now, go back home to Iran birthers!
@butterdezillion: You have “spent 1,000s of hours on this??
You need a hobby.
.
Wow! Even I can’t claim to have spent thousands of hours on this stuff.
Nor would I be too proud when making such a claim and then have so little to show for.
I don’t have time to research all the UIPA material, because it is irrelevant to the questions I am concerned with. If your reference is to this section in the booklet:
I wouldn’t read “form” to mean surface mail or email or view in person, but rather in how the information is presented. The DoH regulations say you should go to their office. The UIPA booklet says:
I think it’s a great thing for the agencies to save energy and paper by sending you emails. I just don’t see that it’s required.
butterdezillion: [Janice Okubo is] shooting from the hip.
Sometimes it seems that way. I have not been impressed that much by the precision of Okubo’s answers on several points. However, over time the points get settled. However, Okubo is really not the right person to see for index data. One should go to the health department and ask the records clerk. That’s their job, and they will know what they are doing. That was one of the things I noticed early on reading your site that troubled me–when you said:
I work with vital records administrators all the time, and I know from detail discussions of actual agency practice and procedure that the people who actually do the work have a much more detailed understanding of procedure (for the most part) than the administrative people.
butterdezillion, channeling my mother:
my mother is never wrong. if you thought you heard her say something wrong, you clearly didn’t understand what she was saying. because if you understood what she was saying, there’s no way you could disagree. therefore, if you find yourself disagreeing with her, you are either stupid, slow, sloppy, intentionally obtuse or brainwashed.
because she’s right and it’s obvious.
I was PERSONALLY present at Barack Obama’s birth in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. I saw him enter the world with my own eyes and saw him take his first blessed breath. I remeber it like it was yesterday. It was warm and sunny and the trade winds were rustling the palm trees outside the hospital. Now prove me wrong. Come on birthers…
Careful, it might have been Kona weather.
“But if they’ve got ANY documents in their office with a name on it – regardless of what else is on the document – she’s got index data for a person.”
Are you suggesting that any document with a name on it that passes through their office is recorded in such a way to create index data? That is ludicrous Nellie!
Index data is a reflection of vital records events: births, deaths, marriages, divorces. That information right on the Hawaii Dept of Health website. I found it with a 2 minute search.
http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/obama.html
Please tell me you didn’t think Obama’s request for a copy of birth certificate became index data did you? After thousands of hours you didn’t know index data exists only for vital events? Time wasted that you’ll never get back.
Sometimes I wonder if birthers are really just masochists; each trying to compete to be the King or Queen of the Lost Cause and each tripping over themselves to ensure they come off more foolish than their competition.
[using Monty Python’s Terry Jones old woman’s voice]
YOU’RE A LOONIE!
[/end voice]
No, no, no. This is good.
Think of the damage she might cause in other walks of life were she to rechannel her lunacy elsewhere.
Go for it, butterdezillion, recheck everything, by all means. I suggest you spend every waking hour on this super-duper-vital matter until, say, 2017.
Actually, I was there too, visiting from France on my way to Pakistan. I remember you very well and will “coorborate” your testimony.
I can also do it in a funny voice.
[Terry Jones’ voice]
Wasn’t that Barack a loooovely baby!
[/end voice]
There is no such thing as a “Pending index,:
Sometimes I wonder if birthers are really just masochists
I think of them as obsessives, with a compulsion to post their ravings on the net.
Some are fairly sedate (possibly medicated), just copying and pasting the same material over and over. Others, like the this one, are manic (possibly unmedicated), and eventually burn out. Remember Miss Tickly?
I was born in Mombasa, and I can prove it!
yeah if you were a citizen of kenya or Indoniesa? but to an American that knows one thing about this is its not Contitutional correct to let this go?yeah and am a birther and a Democrat too?
huh???
I was born in a Pontiac. In a hospital. And the hospital was in the Pontiac.
And I can prove it.
Why do you need the documents to be posted online?
Are you agoraphobic? Can you not drive to a law library?
Ask the librarian there to get you a copy of the regulations.
No requirements exist that it should be posted online. The rules themselves merely state that the document should be made available for in office inspection during business hours.
Were you unwilling to verify its existence? Then you have no reason to complain….
It seems like our friend BZ is just another freeper…I was wondering what her motive was, and it seems like we found it. Obama in her eyes was guilty and could never be proven innocent…
For example…
HI Sen Will Espero Inroduces Bill 2 Weeks after “Red Flags” posted
butterdezillion ^ | butterdezillion
Posted on Friday, February 19, 2010 12:27:00 PM by butterdezillion
On Jan 27, 2010 Hawaii State Senator Will Espero has introduced a bill to label some people “vexatious requestors” who can be denied responses from the DOH. This action was taken 2 weeks after I posted “Red Flags in Hawaii”, (see at http://butterdezillion.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/red-flags-in-hawaii-2/ ), a blog post documenting how Hawaii government officials have broken laws and rules in order to cover for Obama.
The Honolulu Advertiser has an article about it. Apparently I can’t post anything from the HA because they won’t allow it, but it’s in an article online today. In it, Okubo claims that she gets about 50 requests/month for Obama’s BC.
First off, I call BS on that number. I requested all the UIPA requests involving Obama for a 2-week period and there were 7 requests – only 2 of which were for a BC, and both for a non-certified abbreviated birth certificate, which the Administrative Rules expressly authorize to be released to anybody who asks for it.
Second, I believe this firmly places us in phase 3 of the saying, “First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”
——————————————————————————–
TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: certifigate; redflags
I sent a formal letter to every legal official I could think of in Hawaii – including Will Espero – requesting an investigation of the crimes and ethics breaches I’ve documented on my blog. He never responded to me but apparently Will Espero got my letter. And decided to try to punish me, the whistle-blower. I think that speaks volumes about what I’ve been saying all along.
1 posted on Friday, February 19, 2010 12:27:00 PM by butterdezillion
And of course she is channeling the discredited Ms. Tickly….
To: butterdezillion
OMG.
One day, we will be vindicated. You and I both know he’s hiding something.
No matter what IT is, it will show him for the lying sack he is.
And finally here is the end game, BZ misreading statutes and making her own conclusions absent of any facts….
To: roses of sharon
State allow also gives DOH rules the authority to authorize disclosures, and those rules allow ANYBODY WHO ASKS FOR IT to receive a non-certified abbreviated copy of a birth certificate. Okubo knows this; she’s been told about 5 times just from me. Every time she comes up with an argument about how HRS 338-18 prohibits disclosure, but it is 338-18a which specifically makes the DOH Administrative Rules authoritative – and they authorize this release to anybody who asks for it.
I think what’s really going on is they can’t issue an abbreviated copy (COLB) because one particular item is missing from the original birth certificate – an item which had to be added and whose addition to the original birth certificate has to be noted on the abbreviated certificate. That note would give away everything. As would the long-form certificate.
They have to fight to not show anything but a forged COLB online because everything they actually have at the DOH shows that the birth record is not validated – but had to be amended 40+ years after the birth to provide the information that any attending doctor would have given at birth or when examining the child after an unattended birth.
9 posted on Friday, February 19, 2010 12:44:15 PM by butterdezillion
And when BZ was informed by a FR poster that she would never have standing to view any of Obama’s records even if she is labeled a “requestor”, she responds below….
To: El Sordo
If I am not allowed to get what is accessible to any person according to Hawaii statute and rules – because some bureaucrat labels me a “vexatious requestor” – then not only am I suffering a personal injury, but the bureaucrats have been given permission to totally ignore open records laws or any other laws simply because they use the Alinsky tactic of labeling somebody they don’t like. It’s what Judge Robertson of “The Magnificent Seven” fame has tried to do with Orly also. Only this is not at a community-organizer, peon level. This is at the state legislature and Circuit Court level. Wow. Just wow.
This is supposed to get a hearing in Hawaii. Anybody from Hawaii who doesn’t want to see your open records laws totally destroyed better speak up now.
That’s the level they’re going to with this. They are unwilling to undo the open records law’s real power for the sake of covering for Obama – and all this in response to having received an official request for an investigation of illegal and unethical behavior which has been documented online.
Trying to undo the open records laws as well as all the other laws and rules they’ve ignored or outright disobeyed. Maybe I need to add that to my blog when I get some time.
44 posted on Friday, February 19, 2010 1:41:53 PM by butterdezillion
Here’s the story that mentions the two bills:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20102190362
Funny quote:
“When Okubo told one writer they did not have a right to Obama’s birth certificate because they were not related to the president, the person wrote back saying they, indeed, had a common ancestor.
“They said they have a tangible right to his birth certificate because they’re descended from Adam,” Okubo said, referring to the biblical figure. “We told them they need to provide some type of legal documentation.”
Frickin birther morons. I wonder what is bothering BZ, that she’s not special, she’s just one of 50 a month doing the same thing she’s doing, or she doesn’t like being called “vexatious”?
She is amazing- in her mind there is no possibility that she is wrong. As she has shown here when posting, she approaches this from the point of view that President Obama must be hiding something- something- and nothing will convince them otherwise.
No point in arguing with folks like that.
Kimba, probably all three…I think we need to actively engage and debunk the birther nonsense…Obviously ignoring them doesn’t work….They just keep coming, like a single minded mob intent on the destruction of the President and the Democratic party, and as much as shining a light on them show them to be crazy, they are still enough of them to cause problems. These are the people that are unhappy somehow, and want to take that unhappiness out on the President because he is the epitome of everything they hate and dislike…
Kimba: thanks for the link. Nothing will ever satisfy that crowd. They’re just a bunch of malcontents, going nuts because the descendants of slaves are in the White House.
Hey birthers: it’s not the “White House” anymore. Snicker.
And when someone not a wingnut says the following he is attacked for making his comments…
Along with dealing with Tea Party members, Hatch also fielded a question about whether Obama was legitimately qualified to be president.
“Tami Wall, of Saratoga Springs, asked if the Senate was going to look into whether Obama was a natural-born U.S. citizen. The “Birther” movement claims that Obama was actually born in Kenya.
Hatch said it was a fair question, but it is one that has been put to rest. Obama, he said, was born to a U.S. mother in Hawaii.
“Who has seen the papers? Have you?” Wall asked.
“I am satisfied he fits the requirements [for the presidency],” Hatch said.”
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14423113
Wow reading that- makes me all warm and fuzzy seeing KDSB posting informative comments there- and it was clear which poster was Butterzillion.
Basically their whole comment was that Obama is a lieing sleazebag, bad for the country and therefore must show his birth certificate- oh yeah and also not eligible because his father was an alien.
People like Orrin Hatch are going to have to have the stones to stand up to these people and tell them, there’s no issue here. Maybe they need to hear it from Cheney, Palin, Romney and Pawlenty. That would make their heads explode, because they’re going to have vote for one of those clowns or Obama in 2012. “Oh, wait do I vote for the kenyan, muslim, usurperin, mofo or the guy that told me the usurperin mofo isn’t usuperin at all. Politics is hard!”
Wait until they face voting for Jindal. Ho ho ho.
HA! I’d love to see Jindal as the nominee! I think he’ll get culled in the primaries though. But wouldn’t it be fun, ” I really should vote for the brown Indian man so he can beat the brown usurper, but oooooo, the brown people. why, why “(ala Nancy Kerrigan)
Ultimately I think their nominee will be Mitt-Mitt and the righties will moan and bitch about him like they did McCain. Were you surprised Mitt was flying coach out of Vancouver?
How’s kitty?