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Here’s the birth certificate!

One of the dumbest questions asked by birthers is “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” Amid unfounded rumors that candidate Obama’s middle name was “Mohammed,” his campaign released his birth certificate in June of 2008. Perhaps you’ve seen it?

Obama Certification of Live Birth

Birthers have tried to deny this simple document ever since. First, they denied that the document even existed in paper form, and that it didn’t have the seal of the State of Hawaii. Staff from FactCheck.org actually took photos of the original paper document, but those were denied too.

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New video debunks Gilbert’s Dreams movie

My hat’s off to Loren Collins, who has taken on Joel Gilbert and his movie Dreams from My Real Father movie, thrown them to the mat and applied an unbreakable submission hold. Loren has done superb research and completed the job with a well-made video. You don’t hear me say this often, but this needs to go viral.

Since this article was written, the original video was removed by YouTube for claims of copyright infringement (see discussion below the video) and what appears following is a new version.

Between the time I watched the video and I hit the Publish button, the original video was made unavailable on YouTube with the note: “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Highway 61 Entertainment.”

Highway 61 entertainment is the production company that made Dreams from My Real Father, a brief 25-second excerpt from which appears in Loren’s video. Loren would know better than I, but I believe this is fair use and no copyright infringement exists; nevertheless, the way the law works, it is very easy to get material removed from the Internet, at least in the short term, with a copyright violation claim.

The birther contribution to American jurisprudence

Dealing with frivolous litigation, whether filed by a seasoned attorney or a novice pro se litigant, is a bit like wrangling cats.

Robert J. Davis

Where's the Birth Certificate? billboardWhile one doesn’t usually combine “birther” and “contribution” in the same sentence, the birther phenomenon has left its mark on the US justice system through educational examples, black letter law, and a bit of humor to spice up otherwise dull legal briefs. This article details ways in which the birthers in general, and Orly Taitz in particular, have contributed to the law.

A good example of bad behavior

I don’t know whether they teach this at the William Howard Taft online law school, but there are certain standard reference works that attorneys rely on to inform their practice and to find the citations that they need to make legal arguments. One source is the Practicing Law Institute whose mission is:

To enhance the professionalism of attorneys and other qualified persons by providing, in a cost effective manner, the highest quality and most innovative programs, publications and other services to enable them to practice law competently and ethically, and to fulfill pro bono responsibilities.

In 2010, the PLI published a paper by Koral and Price titled: “Trying the Court’s patience instead of the case: common litigation mistakes” to draw the line between “zealous advocacy” and “impermissible or injudicious tactics.” One way of brightening the line is to give examples of what constitutes “impermissible or injudicious tactics” and the birthers, in the person of Orly Taitz, provide a featured example of being on the wrong side of the line. Writing about Rhodes v. MacDonald, where Judge Clay D. Land sanctioned Taitz:

Attorney Orly Taitz provides a notorious recent example of an attorney’s conduct succeeding more at irritating the judge than at advancing the interests of her client. A member of the “birther” movement, which challenges President Obama’s citizenship on the grounds that he had failed to adequately prove that he was born in the United States, Ms. Taitz filed a motion in connection with this litigation on behalf of a Captain in the United States Army to enjoin her deployment to Iraq. District Judge Clay D. Land held that the motion was frivolous, and further found that “Plaintiff’s motion is being presented for the improper purpose of using the federal judiciary as a platform to espouse controversial political beliefs rather than as a legitimate forum for hearing legal claims.”

Taitz was sanctioned for her conduct in the case because, as Judge Land said:

[t]his pattern of conduct reveals that it will be difficult to get counsel’s attention [and so a] significant sanction is necessary to deter such conduct.

The PLI article was written in 2010, before Orly Taitz brought a federal lawsuit against Judge Land. I wonder what the article would say if it were written today!

Black letter law

The Wikipedia article on Precedent says:

gavelIn common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts.

Black letter law is the body of cases that attorneys and courts look to for established precedent. If you have ever read a birther legal decision that involves dismissal for lack of standing, you will almost invariably see Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife cited. Once the body of birther lawsuits built, one began to see citations on standing to decided birther cases, notably Hollander v. McCain and Berg v. Obama. More recently we see extensive citations to Ankeny v. Governor of Indiana alongside US v. Wong on the question of whether Obama is a natural born citizen and Robinson v. Bowen on ripeness of election challenges.

The precedential value of birther lawsuits now extends beyond the backwaters of birtherism; they have become mainstream precedent in several areas of the law and now appear in the standard reference resources used by attorneys.

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Is Joel Gilbert’s film “Dreams from My Real Father” child pornography?

It what might be the best piece of investigative reporting encountered in my entire career as Dr. Conspiracy, Loren Collins at the Barackryphal blog has proven beyond question that the so-called nude photos of Obama’s mother where not photos of Ann Dunham taken by Frank Marshall Davis in 1960 as claimed by Joel Gilbert in his film Dreams from My Real Father, but date back to 1958 when they appeared in a porno-fetish magazine. In 1958, Obama’s mother was only 15 and hadn’t yet moved to Hawaii.

If Gilbert is right that these photos are of Ann Dunham, then he is guilty of the sexual exploitation of minors in his film, and so is anyone who has a copy of his film in their possession!

Framer v. Farmer

Introduction

The authorities say that it is abundantly clear that those born US Citizens in the country are natural born citizens1, from whom we elect may Presidents. They also say that in all likelihood those born US citizens anywhere are also natural born citizens and eligible as well; however, they say that an argument can be made against the second group.

I frankly have had a hard time achieving clarity on that second group. Part of the difficulty stems from the question of whether “natural born citizen” is a term of art derived from the English Common Law phrase “natural born subject,” or whether “natural born” is taken from popular usage. That question led to this article’s title, and I think the answer to the question is “both.”

The courts have said repeatedly that the Constitution is correctly interpreted according to the definitions of the Common Law with which the Framers were familiar. One exposition of this principle was made by Chief Justice Taft in Ex Parte Grossman267, U.S. (1925):

The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted. The statesmen and lawyers of the Convention who submitted it to the ratification of the Conventions of the thirteen States were born and brought up in the atmosphere of the common law, and thought and spoke in its vocabulary. They were familiar with other forms of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their discussions earnest study and consideration of many of them, but when they came to put their conclusions into the form of fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed them in terms of the common law, confident that they could be shortly and easily understood.

However, I have some reservations about that statement. The foregoing is descriptive of the Framers, but the Framers did not enact the U. S. Constitution; they only wrote it. It was in state conventions where the document was debated and eventually adopted. For me the question is not what the Framers wrote, but what the Country ratified. Some of those delegates were lawyers and some were farmers.

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The African Race: the final chapter

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.”

If the racial entry is ... "Afro-American" ...

If the racial entry is "Yellow," "Oriental," or "Mongolian" ...

In fact, other Hawaiian birth certificates from 1961 make it clear how open-ended the race response was:

Race of Mother: Hawaiian Fil Port Sp

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.

Race. -- Write Eurpoean, Arab, Somali or African, etc. Asians must write Indian or Pakistan.

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.

Indicting Sheriff Joe and the Cold Case Posse

The charge

Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Mike Zullo are charged with fraud and fabricating evidence.

The crime scene

On July 17, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio held a press conference featuring the results of an investigation by his volunteer “Cold Case Posse” presented by “lead investigator” Mike Zullo. The centerpiece of their presentation was a claim that President Obama’s birth certificate is a fake because of internal inconsistencies. The argument goes:

The race of Barack Obama’s father is shown as “African” on the birth certificate, but next to that is a penciled data entry code of “9” that should indicate “not stated.” The code is wrong, proving that the form is a fake.

In support of that very serious allegation they presented a race code table taken from what they described as a “1961 vital statistics instructions manual.” They lied. Here is a screen shot from the Cold Case Posse video of the purported 1961 manual.

image9

How do we know that they lied?

The US Public Health Service published Vital Statistics of the US – 1961 – Volume 1: Natality, a report of births in 1961 that’s available online.

image

In that report is stated on page 5-7:

Births in the United States in 1961 are classified for vital statistics into white, Negro, American Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Aleut, Eskimo, Hawaiian and Part-Hawaiian (combined), and "other nonwhite

Only the Cold Case Posse code table doesn’t have separate codes for Aleut and Eskimo and so it could not be the code table for 1961. Later on, the Natality Report includes  footnotes to table 4-2:

image_thumb[1][1]

This shows unambiguously that the real coding in 1961 distinguished between Indian, Aleut and Eskimo. The Cold Case Posse codes lump them all together and so could not be what was used for federal birth reporting in 1961. Whatever codes were really used in Hawaii in 1961, they are not the ones the Cold Case Posse claimed.

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