Baby Obama delivered by neighbor?
Flag of Kenya
The Lucas Smith image, purporting to be a Kenyan birth certificate for Barack Obama shows the attending physician as James O. W. Ang’awa. That’s not a made-up name. There really was such a physician in Kenya, and one of some note. Unfortunately for our purposes and for his family as well, he was murdered some 40 years ago.
What is interesting from the conspiracy theory point of view, a view always looking for connections, is the fact that Ang’awa was a neighbor of Barack Obama, Sr. according to a recent article at Kenya’s leading newspaper, The Nation.
Is this a remarkable coincidence? Well, if the birth certificate is a fake (and it most likely is), then the faker could have chosen any name he wanted and put it on the certificate, including one that had some connection to Barack Obama, Sr. Of course, whatever travel fancies may exist, Barack Obama, Sr. was going to college when his son, the future president, was born, and not residing near Dr. Ang’awa. That must have come later.
Kenya’s “The Nation” newspaper states that Dr Ang’awa was the director of the national anti-tuberculosis unit at the ministry of Health at the time of his death around 1970. In 1951 and 1952, Ang’awa published two articles related to medical complications related to childbirth. But by 1959 he was publishing articles about the treatment of tuberculosis at the Port Reitz Chest Hospital (in Mombasa). At the time of his death in 1970, Ang’awa was head of the national anti-tuberculosis unit at the ministry of Health.
So far, I haven’t been able to find any evidence that Dr. Ang’awa was delivering babies in 1961. Some have suggested that Ang’awa’s name came from an 1966 Journal of Tropical Pediatrics paper by him. There is an image floating around the Internet showing that journal article accompanied by two inked infant footprints (remarkably similar to the ones on the Smith certificate); however, I have not been able to locate an original image that includes this journal article and the footprints and have some doubts that it is authentic. It rather looks like someone took the journal article and pasted the footprint from the Smith certificate on them, flipping one copy. Given that the topic of the article is tuberculosis prevention, focusing on school age children, inked baby footprints don’t make a lot of sense.
The Lucas Smith certificate is discussed in my article: Latest filings in Barnett v Obama.
11% of California voters are “birthers”
Sigh.
That’s the case according to a Field Corporation Poll released January 26, 2010. In addition to that hard core 11% who say they don’t believe Obama was born in the USA, another 22% aren’t sure.
Eighty-five percent of Democrats, but just 42% of Republicans, maintain that Obama was born in the U.S. There is also a wide divergence of opinion between liberals, 96% of whom believe Obama was born in America, and conservatives, of whom fewer than half feel this way (45%). …
Just 29% of the voters who say they identify a lot with the tea party movement believe that Obama is a U.S.-born citizen.
In 2008, there were about 17 million registered voters in California, so by extrapolation we find there about 1.9 million birthers in California (not counting those unsure and those not registered to vote).
Nordyke twins birth announcement found!
Nordyke Announcement
“Inspector” Lucas Smith claimed in comments on YouTube to have examined all newspaper birth announcements from August through December of 1961, not finding the birth announcement of the Nordyke twins (born at the same hospital as President Obama, one day later). Whether not finding was through oversight or fraud, the birth announcement is there in the newspaper on August 16 (Obama’s announcement was on August 13).
Birthers have attempted to discredit the Obama birth announcement claiming, against testimony of the newspaper and the Hawaii Department of Health that such announcements came from the department, that anyone could place such an “ad”. The very newspaper heading does not say “Birth Announcements” but rather “Health Bureau Statistics” if anyone needed further confirmation of what the announcements are. If a contemporary birth were omitted, then one would ask how, if the Health Department submitted the announcements, could one be omitted. It turns out that the objection is a fake, because the announcement is there just as it should be according to official policy. This announcement, just as the original Obama announcement, was found and published by an industrious blogger.
The Nordyke announcement is at the bottom of the column.
Berg v. Freeze
Conservative law student Jamie Freeze has written a scathing criticism of the birthers, those who believe Barack Obama was born outside the United States. Attorney Phil Berg, a leader in putting forward that version of the birther point of view, has replied in kind in a December 24, 2009 article, JAMIE FREEZE CALLS ANYONE QUESTIONING SOETORO/OBAMA’S CITIZENSHIP STATUS “INCOMPETENT IDIOTS” at his ObamaCrimes.com blog.
Berg, as an experienced litigator, immediately pounced on the weak point of Freeze’s article, it gratuitous insults, ridicule and name calling. Berg can cast himself as the wise instructor of the inexperienced student. He becomes a sympathetic figure, and quickly brings the jury over to his side. Whenever Freeze (or I for that matter), makes a gratuitous criticism or a sarcastic remark, attorneys like Berg (or Apuzzo) can pounce on it, answer it, and divert attention from the more substantial points.
For example, in a very long response, Berg fails to acknowledge and answer the fact that the head Hawaii Department of Health said unequivocally that Barack Obama’s birth certificate says he was born in Hawaii, but continues to claim that Obama’s birth in Hawaii is unsubstantiated. Berg continues to say that the COLB has been “deemed to be forged” while not admitting that those claiming it was a forgery were themselves fakes and forgeries (anonymous persons claiming credentials they never had and using fake analysis).
They cross swords over the situation that would be the case should Obama have been born in Kenya of a US mother and Berg continues to claim Obama’s name is Soetoro so that his campaign was a fraud. You can read it if you want. I’ve lost that fire in the gut to go swim in the sewers.
What attorneys must learn is to focus their message on what is necessary to persuade the audience, and not to try to appear sarcastic, witty, or irrelevantly well-informed.
A most curious article at the Post and Email
[Update: as evidence and argument trickle in, the likelihood that the interview discussed below is authentic increases. I contacted Mr. Omolo by email and his reply was basically that since he did not know my motives, he would not talk to me. This is a theme in the Charlton interview too, and adds credibility. It looks like Mr. Omolo is aware of the dangers of talking to the wrong person and having his remarks interpreted for purposes he doesn't approve of.]
I have come upon a most curious article at the Post and Email blog from last August. The blog, whose articles appear under the name of John Charlton (thought by some to be the sock puppet of Charles E. Lincoln III, the disbarred lawyer writing Orly Taitz’s briefs of late). As a general rule, what I see at the Post and Email is the most outrageous of birther nonsense.
But this time, the Post and Email publishes what purports to be an interview with Leo Omolo, said to be a journalist and a family friend of the African Obama family, an interview which emphatically debunks the “grandmother tape” and asserts that President Obama was born in Hawaii. In the interview Mr. Omolo says that he listened to the “grandmother” tape, that he recognized the voice of Sarah Obama and that Sarah Obama said that she was present in Mombasa at the time the President was born in Hawaii, learning of the birth by telegram from her husband. (Mr. Omolo is a native speaker of the Swahili language and the Luo language.) This is a very important statement because it is the first published report of which I am aware which doesn’t rely on the real-time translation on the tape.
This article leaves two questions:
- Why would a birther blog publish an article that strongly asserts Obama was born in Hawaii?
- Is the interview authentic?
I cannot speculate on the first question, but I certainly have doubts that the interview is authentic for these reasons:
- There would have to have been a very long exchange of emails to create the interactive dialog presented in the article
- Mr Omolo’s name could have been harvested easily from the blog post cited in the article.
- The article asserts that Sarah Obama learned of her grandson by a telegram that reached her in Mombasa, but a previous newspaper report says she received a letter.
- The article asserts that Sarah Obama, in the taped interview, said she was in Mombasa when Obama was born, but Obama was in Hawaii. I have seen no interpretation of the tape before that suggests this. The phrase, it seemed to me, was introduced out of the blue by Bishop Ron McRae, who did not hear it from the translator. (more…)
Newspapers vary on Obama’s birthplace
I would think everyone here is familiar with the birth notices for Barack Obama from Honolulu newspapers printed in 1961. Now, literally out of nowhere, come newspaper articles from bygone years saying Obama was born elsewhere.
The first is an article from the Sunday Standard of Nairobi, Kenya, as recorded in an Internet archive from 2004. The headline is “Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate.” The article references an AP article, but research by commenters here show that the original AP article doesn’t mention “Kenyan-born”, indicating that this was an addition by the Nairobi newspaper itself. However, the newspaper doesn’t elaborate on their source of information.
The Honolulu Advertiser came up with yet a different story in January 2006. According to them, Obama was born, not in Hawaii, nor in Kenya, but in Indonesia! They said:
Both were born outside the country — Obama in Indonesia, Duckworth in Thailand — and graduated from high school in Honolulu — Punahou and McKinley, respectively. (more…)
Donofrio team pries previously known information out of Hawaii
Leo. C. Donofrio
I don’t want to make too much fun of Donofrio and his article DoH Reverses Course – Releases Index Data For President Obama, Stanley Ann and Barack, Sr; No Records For Maya Exist. While the fake dramatic aura written into his article is silly, at least it presents some facts.
It has been clear to me since last year that this, and another approach to obtaining records from Hawaii, if pressed, would result in disclosure of this already-public information. The other approach is the Verification in Lieu of a Certificate. But the information pried out of the Department of Health, is the same information the DOH sent to the Hawaii news service and was subsequently printed in two Honolulu newspapers 47 years ago. I suppose it’s nice that Donofrio has another voice from the same source saying the same thing, but there is no surprise here. This really is “old news”.
Leo also “learned” that Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng does not have a Hawaiian birth certificate which–while still claimed otherwise by birthers as recently as by a filing in Hollister v. Soetoro a week ago–is impossible under Hawaiian law. So TechDude (who claimed he could see that the COLB was constructed from a base copy of Maya’s birth certificate) is exposed as a fraud (wait, TechDude was already exposed as a fraud).
It remains to be seen if Leo Donofrio will be believed or demonized by the birthers. The odds are on the latter.
