I have been pretty frustrated with the media coverage of the so-called “birther bills.” The articles almost uniformly characterize the bills as attempts to make Presidential candidates prove their eligibility, but these bills go much further by requiring that the President be delivered by a physician in a hospital!
For example the Arizona bill HB2544 requires: “the names of the hospital and the attending physician,” Georgia’s HB401 calls for “the attending physician at the candidate’s birth, ” and Tennessee’s SB366 also requires “names of the hospital and the attending physician“.
What is the matter with these states? Have they not read the Constitution?
No person except a natural born Citizen, … shall be eligible to the Office of President
What could be more natural than a home birth?
A home birth in developed countries is an attended or an unattended childbirth in a non-clinical setting, typically using natural childbirth methods, that takes place in a residence rather than in a hospital or a birth centre, and usually attended by a midwife or lay attendant with expertise in managing home births.
It’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature or the Constitution.
[hr]
Note: Barack Obama was born at the Kapi’olani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii.
( Note: Barack Obama was born at the Kapi’olani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. )
lmfao
was that before or after he was born at Queens Medical Center in Hawaii, as stated by Obama’s stepsister, Snopes and other published articles?
http://www.theobamafile.com/_eligibility/Hospitals.htm
http://www.theobamafile.com/_images/SnopesSaysQueens.bmp
http://www.theobamafile.com/_images/ObamaBornQueensMedical.jpg
The stepsister claim was already debunked here on this site- do a search and you’ll realize you are posting inaccurate information.
In point of fact it is unlikely that they will realize they are (deliberately or not) lying – but it would work if they were a rational person…
“Queens Medical Center in…”
just a little clarification, that claim was in a student newspaper, later retracted, however the source was that there are two Queens Hopitals
1. Queen Kapi’olani Hospital (primarily Maternity, founded by Queen Kapi’olani )
2. Queen Emma Medical Center (general Hospital, founded by Queen Emma)
both were often called “Queens Hospitals”
.
my daughter was born at Queen Kapi’olani Hospital, her Auntie showed up to visit her at Queen Emma’s, a common mistake but great for dimwit birthers!
shorter version: Scary scary black man dribble dribble
Moving on.
Doc:
“I have been pretty frustrated with the media coverage of … ”
Say no more.
Insert any topic of your choice.
American media used to be the envy and admiration of the world. In the 70s we worshiped the NY TIMES and WAPO, considering them to be lofty goals we (French) could only dream of an/or aspire to.
Sadly this is all in the past; several years ago I was interviewed by Le Figaro (a center right paper) and afterward the journalist told me they now looked at WAPO the way they used to check PRAVDA — to learn the official lie of the day.
The Iraq war and the recent turmoil in North Africa have starkly exposed the spiraling rot of the American media — some due to simple incompetence (like labeling Egypt where Iraq is on a map or stating that Brazil overlooks the Pacific Ocean — two examples I’ve found myself), but also political blindness and the slavish desire to kowtow to the powers that be to keep their petty privileges, a syndrome aptly nicknamed Versailles.
I can’t tell you how sad it makes me feel.
I blame it all on the rise of the spell checker. Some people think that because their words are spelled correctly they don’t need proof readers anymore.
The person who taught the teaching seminar I had as a grad student at Duke calls them ‘spill checkers’…
Queen’s own site also mentions the name change, which obviously stemmed from the confusion between the two hospitals.
From their site here: http://www.queensmedicalcenter.net/about-us/about-the-medical-center
Quote:
The Queen’s Hospital, now called The Queen’s Medical Center, was founded in 1859 by Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV.”
Of course, articles have also said “Obama graduated from Columbia.”
Given one small typo or complete ODS, we could then have our first president from Bogata, Colombia.
It’s just up to birther imagination to say it’s so, but it still won’t change a thing.
Really birthers… it’s been over 2 years now.
You haven’t got squat on the man and yet you still persist in thinking you’re going to get him out.
Where you once believed Orly saying he’d be gone in 30 days, she is instead out $20,000 and Obama remains in office.
We also have that idiot Lakin in Leavenworth and his retirement gone too.
And don’t forget the bogus Citizen Grand Juries (LOL!), the Manning “trial” and the next to experience mass deaths: the birther bills.
All of these ridiculous beliefs and attempts have resulted in complete failure.
You birthers have not had even one tiny shred of success despite over 2 years of trying.
0% success. Zero!
It’s time to realize that the score is 30 to 0 and there’s 5 seconds left in the game.
It’s no longer time to root for your team, it’s time to go home.
Accept it and deal with it. You’ve lost.
If you read the student article from The Rainbow Edition interviewing Maya Soetoro-Ng, you will see that Maya is not being quoted on the matter of the hospital. This is the student’s statement. Neither of these two had any direct knowledge of where President Obama was born in the first place, neither having been born yet. Also, as richCares points out, both hospitals are Queen something.
In real life folks make mistakes, misremember things and confuse details. This is normal, except when someone hell-bent on proving a conspiracy theory comes along, with an incurable case of confirmation bias, and then it becomes “evidence.”
Kapi’olani published a letter from President Obama that states he was born there as part of their 100th anniversary celebration. That’s evidence from someone who actually knows something.
LMAO? That’s gotta hurt. How do you sit?
Hey Doc, go easy on him. He’s on;y a birtther, after all. It’s not fair to use things like logic and reality against them. How are they supposed to deal with that?
Even if the letter is real and was actually sent from President Obama, it is Obama’s claim that he was born at the hospital. The hospital has never confirmed Obama was born there. In addition, investigators from Dr. Corsi as well investigators from the Hawaii Election Office where Tim Adams worked could find no evidence that Obama or Stanely [sic] Ann Dunham was actually born or at the Kapaloni [sic] Medical Center. Governor Neil Abercrombie also investigated and was unable to confirm anything.
[I think that the hospital’s printing of Obama’s letter is confirmation by the hospital that President Obama was born there. Also there is no evidence that Tim Adams conducted any kind of “investigation” and in fact it has been shown that he, nor anyone in his office, had access to birth records. As for Corsi, we have no evidence of what he investigated either. Finally, Neil Abercrombie stated that an indication of Obama’s birth in Hawaii was found. He, of course, didn’t have access to the birth records themselves. See, this is why I don’t let most of your comments go through. They are all wrong and unsupported by the evidence. Doc.]
They know they are intentionally misinforming….The birthers do this in order to feel special….No matter how many times you debunk their “proof” they will continue to believe in their lies because of their hatred of President Obama….I mean Mario still believes that there was some sort of Travel Ban on Americans to Pakistan. They are just not rational human beings…
Okay, I’m pretty ignorant on how the legal system works, so bear with me.
These bills are clearly unconstitutional and would be struck down in court quickly.
But for that to happen, as I understand, someone has to file a law suit challenging them, then go to court to fight.
Is there a possibility that these court fights could keep President Obama off the ballot long enough (while they’re being fought) to jeopardize his re-election campaign?
I rather doubt that President Obama or the Democrats would challenge the bills, should any of them become law. It would look bad and raise doubts. Much easier to comply with them.
The bills are only an impediment to Obama in birther imagination.
> It’s time to realize that the score is 30 to 0 and there’s 5 seconds left in the game.
They’ve probably seen the Futurama episode where Prof. Farnsworth’s mutants play the Harlem Globetrotters, leading by about 40 points into the final minute. Fry gets to play for the mutant team, a time lapse (flash forward) occurs and the game is lost by about 30 points. In other words, they’re still dreaming of their miracle, space-time fabric rips not excluded.
> No matter how many times you debunk their “proof” they will continue to believe in their lies
Typical crank pattern. They keep firing “arguments” like a Gatling gun and when you refute them and throw them back at them, they just reload and start again. My regular law forum occasionally enjoys visits from such guys; currently I’m debating with a guy who actually wants to discuss his stock US (!) tax evasion arguments (the US are a corporation, Congress is not really authorized to act, bla bla) in a German law forum. *sigh* Same tactics as the birthers, lots of unreflected parroting, moving goalposts, everyone else is “brainwashed” or “in on the conspiracy” and whatnot.
It’s not just birthers either. You’ll find the same pattern with other conspiracy nutbags; holocaust deniers, 9/11 “truthers”, flat earthers, free energy cranks, illuminati lizard men fearmongers…..
The birthers aren’t any diffrerent
Ah that canard again claiming the US is a corporation based on them misreading about how a municipal government is set up and run.
A signifcant amount of the birthers have demonstrated that they also buy into a number of those other crazy conspiracies you listed.
Some people are just completely attracted to crazy I guess…
Comply by providing the long form birth certificate? I’ve also heard people say that if Obama releases his long form, it’ll be caving in to his enemies and that will also be politically costly. Also, haven’t you been saying that some of these birther bills set a burden of proof that Obama’s long form wouldn’t be able to meet, such as requiring a BC with his father’s name?
No most of the bills that most likely will pass have nothing to do with a long form but simply ask for a birth certificate. All Obama has to do is give the same COLB he already has.
Still lying through your teeth, I see. The more things change…
Oh okay. I must admit that I have a terrible memory and quickly lost track of all the stuff about birther bills I’ve read in the past few days.
I think that releasing the birth certificate NOW would be caving to the birthers, but a birth certificate, filed as required by law in a state, with no press release or public acknowledgment would not seem to me to be caving.
When I wrote my comment, I presumed that the “father’s address” requirement wouldn’t ever get enacted, since most states did not collect that information on the cohort who are running for President today.
Which do you think might pass?
If any do get passed most likely it will be the plain birth certificate ones. No additional requirements such as hospital, witnesses, single citizenship etc. It is doubtful any of these would even be able to make a difference before 2012
Doc: I think your statement regarding complying with these bills glosses over a number of issues. If a bill simply mandates providing a birth certiificate in whatever form the candidate’s birth state normally produces them, then the bill would be constitutional and easily complied with and thus should and would be complied with. However, many of these bills go far beyond that:
1. Many have unconstitutional provisions regarding dual citizenship or requiring hospital birth (something which only 4 or 5 Presidents actually could claim). There is a serious federal issue in permitting individual states to set requirements for federal office beyond what is in the Constitution. The President would have a duty to challenge such laws, not as a candidate, but in his official function, on behalf of the United States.
2. Suppose they simply demand a “long-form” certificate. Now you might say that Hawaii could, if they felt like it certify a copy of Obama’s “long-form”. But unless every state enacts special laws that entitle presidential candidates to a different birth document than the average Joe gets, then this is at the discretion of the state Administration at the time the candidate runs. Now imagine that at some point in the future a strong Republican candidate hails from a Democratic-controlled state. The Governor could do his party a favor by simply denying the document. Maybe this is far-fetched, but why allow even the possibility of such a situation to occur?
In any case, when states enact unconstitutiional laws, whether Jim Crow or unreasonable restrictions on running for office or anything else, the President (whether the laws affect hiim personally or not) cannot just sit back and accept them, but must defend the Constitution, as he swore to do
Members of the president’s political party (and others who are independents and third party members, I’m sure) will do just that on a state level.
I’m betting that the President and the Justice Department “stays above the fray.”
President Dwight David Eisenhower did not have a birth certificate of any type until he was 62 years old because he was a home birth. The birth certificate that was developed for him was only attested to as factual by the president’s brother testifying to the date and circumstances of his birth to a notary public.
Technically speaking, the Constitution does not require a candidate to be in possession of a Birth Certificate either.
Quite true, and since state-issued birth certificates only arose in the latter part of the 19th century, plenty of Presidents never had one. Personally, I’m uncomfortable with the government or judges deciding who gets to run for public office. Let the candidate swear to their eligibility and leave it to the press and their opponents to say otherwise and let the voters decide.
I’ve been interested in this for a while.
I have a relative born in California and helped order some birth certificates. Just as a souvenir, we got him a couple from the city (the city has its own vital records office) and another one from the county. They look almost identical (both are scanned images of somewhat limited resolution like a FAX) , although the county one is reduced in size a bit. The pixels are identical in the two city copies, but differ from the one from the county. I’m guessing that the city scanned the form into its electronic database and then passed on the paper copy to the county records office, which then performed its own scan. I understand that the State of California can issue birth certificates, but they recommend six months after birth at which point they probably have the form delivered from the county recorder. We’re a bit curious what the state file number is.
However – the irony of the Georgia bill is that it sets up a series of requirements for a “long form” birth certificate. One of the requirements is that it lists the residence of both parents. That might be an issue if the father isn’t listed (which can be the case) or if it doesn’t exist on the form, as with California’s form:
http://www.newsobserver.com/content/media/2008/7/31/birth%20certificate.pdf
Many jurisdictions issue birth certificates, not just states. In addition to California, Georgia and Indiana come to mind. In some cases the forms of the certificates differ significantly.
California is somewhat notorious for their backlog. Local issuance is a money-maker for the jurisdictions that do it, and so they have an incentive to do it better and faster than the states. Local issuance can also lead to security problems when there are looser controls and less-secure paper.
In many states there is no such thing as a long form of any kind to ‘certify’. Information is submitted electronically from the hospital to the Vital Statistics office. No signatures either.
People who are not born in a hospital MAY have paper forms I suppose. But then they won’t have the name of the hospital and possibly no doctor either.
I’ve seen a few images of the State of California “Certificate of Live Birth” for recent births. The vital documents I’ve seen so far in California are almost the same. It’s a standard security paper that says “State of California – Certification of Vital Record” at the top with a multicolor background and maybe a light city/county/state seal in the background and circles at the bottom for the State of California seal and the agency seal. I’ve seen some sheets made by Midwest Bank Note Company as well as one made by Pacific Bancnote Company, who I suppose compete for business but otherwise meet state standards. There seems to be a lot of standardization in California.
I did get the feeling from the State of California that they aren’t terribly interested in issuing certified birth records. They only accept applications by mail, which means paying for a notary to stamp the sworn statement. They I’ve seen the local mail applications that require a notary, but it’s cheaper and faster to get one in person with the clerk checking out ID. The state says their processing times are 2 weeks, but I’ve gotten ones from local records offices in minutes.
I have heard that a few California counties (and a few jurisdictions in Texas) have certified abstract copies of birth records that don’t meet State Dept standards for issuing passports. Haven’t seen an image of one from California though.
I understand perfectly. I was born in California and over the course of several moves I’ve had to contact the Alameda county registrar to get my birth certificate on several occassions. The birth certificate does not show my parents city of residence on it or an address of any sort.
I think older versions of the California Certificate of Live Birth might have that information.
I guess one frustration for the Obama campaign would be that if the President does have an older certified copy of his “long form” and is willing to part with it (at least temporarily), it wouldn’t meet the Georgia HB 401 standard. That one called for the residence of both parents, and the versions of Hawaii’s long form from the 1960s only lists the residence of the mother.
Of course I fully expect that the Constitution’s “Full Faith and Credit” clause is going to kick in somewhere.
That is a pretty big “IF” speculation. Right now, there is no real evidence to conclude that he still is in possession of such an older copy. People tend to lose these things or they get so worn and battered that they can’t be used. It happens all the time.
What we DO know is that processes exist when this happens to request a new BC. Obama’s campaign did this in 2007. We also know that the type of form they were given (COLB) is by HI DOH’s own site, the only one they give out for such requests and that this has been their standard procedure for well over a decade. Long before Obama’s campaign requested it.
I’m curious as to what might happen if some of these birther bills requires the signature of the doctor on the original form. Some states (including California) allow for someone else to sign the form. The one I’ve seen has the signature of a hospital administrator (which is legal if a certain box is filled with the name of the signer), since the doctor wasn’t around at the time the BC was prepared.
Yeah – but some birthers claim there’s some obscure means of getting a certified copy of a “long form”. I’ve heard claims that it is possible to get a direct photocopy, but that the state won’t certify it with the registrar’s signature or the embossed seal.
I could understand why he wouldn’t be willing to part with something like this. I’ve seen some older documents that were so fragile that they were ready to tear upon unfolding. The paper that Hawaii has used over the years looks like the paper used for personal/business checks.
I think that the answer here is pretty simple. Such a requirement cannot survive a challenge and would fail.
Not only is it adding requirements well beyond the Contstitution, but also it could be viewed as discriminatory. Just because many births these days have some sort of attending professional does NOT mean that birth requires any assistance or material witness in the first place (either now or in the past). You can’t discriminate or disqualify some kid who was born in a barn, a car, a bathroom stall, etc.
So what.
Birthers make a lot of crazy claims. If they cannot support those claims with credible evidence to back them up, why would any reasonable person pay attention to them at all?
They’ve been making the “you can still get the long form if only…” claim since pretty much the earliest days of birtherism.
Yet NONE of them have been able to provide ANY actual evidence that supports this.
The closest any came was a birther named Danae who basically got a non-certified photocopy of her older BC with more info on it. No certification or stamps to it. It is in no way a usable document that would be acceptible by any official institution, so it completely fails to meet the test of their claims.
Therefore, at this point, such claims about being able to “still get a long form if only…” from HI are completely baseless and without merit and should not be taken seriously.
Well – that was pretty much what I heard as told by a birther debunker – that the records office could be photocopied, but without the certification that would be needed to make it an official document.
Yep. What I said.
I just want to further add why such extra efforts would be ill advised and useless for any campaign (Obama’s or otherwise) to pander to the nuts and try to get such a photocopy memento.
Since such things are not in any way official and would not carry ANY certification on them, their release would be met by nothing but instant howls of “fraud” from the birther community. Look at how they treated the release of the official COLB and its subsequent reporting on Fact Check and Snopes, which confirmed it and even SHOWED the actual paper copy being held with raised seal and words of certification.
It would be completely naive to think that doing such would in any way quiet down the birther nonsense. It would only intensify their screaming circus and allow them to create more straw-man arguments to distract from anything relevant. Doing such would just feed the trolls.
What I recall were all sort of conspiracy theories attached to that. There’s the “date accepted” vs “date filed” controversy. Or the way things show up in photos depending on focus, lighting, and angles. I guess the kicker was when someone tried getting an image of the Hawaii Dept of Health seal via a public records request. I recall the guy got a pretty lousy looking pencil shade transfer of the seal from Dr Fukino’s office, but one that didn’t exactly match the stylized version that the vital records office used. I’ve seen BC seals from Hawaii that look different and ones that look the same. Honestly though – Hawaii seems to excel at confusing changes to their procedures. Since the 2001 revision, there seem to be at least four different colors, several border changes, at least two different versions of the embossed seal, differences in text (accepted/filed), and even a title change (now “Certificate of Live Birth”). The only thing that seems consistent is that same rubber stamp (that always seems to get smudged) with the registrar’s signature and certification statement.
Not only that, but some are still pointing to the flatbed scanner version that had its certificate number digitally redacted and claiming there’s nothing under there. DUH!
Another big kudos to Patrick over at Bad Fiction today for breaking another story:
The major push behind the GA Birther Bill, Georgia State Senator Mark Hatfield, has been busted lying to Reality Check Radio (and generally to mainstream media inquiries) and revealing that his true full-on birther movitivations ARE directed SPECIFICALLY against Obama in his bill attempts, via a revealing ORYR email…
http://badfiction.typepad.com/badfiction/2011/03/dispatches-from-birtherstan-11-march-2011.html#more
Such things are mere intentional distractions by birthers by over focusing on meaningless minutea to create the appearance of “sinister” problems because there is no “big story” nor real fire to find behind their smoke-and-mirrors stunts.
Quite simply, just about any organization’s processes and forms will contain some minor variations and errors over time if one spends enough time micro-analyzing them to look for such things.
There is really nothing surprising nor sinister nor even incompetant in that. Simply a matter of both human nature being involved when carrying out procedures and changes as well as a general lack of understanding of the actual complexity or effort required that goes on behind the scenes to analyze and implement processes and procedures.
Still – Hawaii’s frequent changes in official document particulars makes what comes out of the birthers interesting. California seems to be pretty consistent even though dozens of jurisdictions issue official documents. It’s one standard border, maybe two vendors supplying the security paper, and an optional seal in the background. I have seen a few differences in the “Certificate of Live Birth” form, but that might just be tiny differences over the past few years. There are a few “informational” California birth certificates of the children of famous people circulating on the internet, including those of Tom Cruise and the illegitimate daughter of John Edwards. A certificate from a few years back only stated “State of Birth” for the parents, while the current one says “Birthplace-State or Country”. If Obama were born in California, would the Birthers find some way to argue that the semantic differences of the form would matter.
The birthers would probably have a crazy-good time dissecting my school records. One particular school placed an embossed seal on one document, but used a multicolored stamp on another. I’d gotten both in the same month. Another school I attended didn’t use any embossed seal or stamp on one document. The printed signature and watermark on the paper was supposed to be the certification. They strangely issued a verification letter that used an embossed stamp, although the embossing was really faint (I’ve had similar issues with other embossed official documents).