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Fault found with Fuddy’s financial facts–fraud?

The birther who blogs as Butterdezillion is the bane of all things Hawaii Department of Health, and one of her latest creations is a bad smell issued about Loretta Fuddy, the Director of the Hawaii Department of Health. She says Fuddy created a string of fake birth certificates renumbered to make a place to insert one she created for Obama.

The State of Hawaii requires financial disclosure from its top officials and the 2011 and 2012 disclosure forms from Fuddy are online:

Following the Birther Peter Principle, the birther digs into the details until they find something they don’t understand, and then declare fraud. Birther ecinck came up with the idea for a possible motive for Fuddy to fake the certificates. Here’s what Butterdezillion said in a Free Republic thread:

When it comes to the financial stuff I am a total moron

But she warms up to the fraud angle nonetheless. What they don’t understand is how Dr. Fuddy could buy an apartment valued at $500,000 and pay down some debt on her $100,000 salary.  Wow was it a payoff for making, as birthers claim, for fake birth certificates?

I’m not a total moron financially, and I can see that the financial disclosure forms do not provide much information about the official’s total assets. It only lists a few narrow categories. Nothing indicates new income associated with these two events.

Never mind the fact that the previous Republican director of the Department of Health, Dr. Fukino, said in an official statement that Obama’s birth records were already on file in accordance with state regulations. Never mind Hawaii’s Republican governor Linda Lingle said the same.

It’s just another excuse to stay in denial.

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Onaka’s verification wording

imageBlogger Butterdezillion along with Mr. Hendershot have made a big deal about the wording of a series of verifications of the information on Obama’s birth certificate. One commenter here raised the issue succinctly.

Hermitian: The last sentence in SOS Bennett’s request for verification was:

“Additionally, please verify that the attached copy of the Certificate of Live Birth for Mr. Obama is a true and accurate representation of the original record in your files.”

Onaka was unable to verify this as fact. Instead he responded as follows:

“Additionally, I verify that the information in the copy of the Certificate of Live Birth for Mr. Obama that you attached with your request matches the original record in our files.”

Birthers have focused on the wording of these three verifications, trying to find hidden meaning in what was not said, trying to make what was not said contradict what they clearly intended to say, but in a sense, Hermitian is technically correct. Onaka couldn’t verify the photocopy; however, this was because of the law, not because the photocopy isn’t an accurate image copy of the original.  The verifications are worded as they are because of the law governing such verifications:

§338-14.3  Verification in lieu of a certified copy.  (a)  Subject to the requirements of section 338-18, the department of health, upon request, shall furnish to any applicant, in lieu of the issuance of a certified copy, a verification of the existence of a certificate and any other information that the applicant provides to be verified relating to the vital event that pertains to the certificate. Continue Reading →

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.

Continue Reading →

Reverse engineering Dr. Onaka

Birther blogger Butterdezillion has a reputation for, how shall I say it, “non-linear thinking.” She’s a pretty good researcher, persistent and I think accurate. The problem with her writing is that the conclusions typically turn out the opposite of what one gets with the usual rules of logic.

The latest example of BZ’ discovery of hidden meaning in plain text is a letter purportedly faxed to every member of Congress in which she says, in part:

Hawaii state registrar Alvin Onaka has publicly certified to AZ SOS Ken Bennett that Barack Obama’s HI birth certificate is legally non-valid and the White House image is a forgery. He also confirmed to KS SOS Kris Kobach that the information contained in the White House image is NOT “identical to” that in the official record.

Cat staring off into spaceI had read that paragraph before without attribution at various web sites, and it frankly made no sense. Now with Butterdezillion’s name attached, the explanation is no longer a mystery. You see, what you don’t say is more important to Butterdezillion than what you do say, and in this case apparently only some special magic formulation can convey Obama’s eligibility, and any failure to use the magic words means the opposite is true. BZ reminds me of the cat in a Kliban cartoon captioned: “Cats see things we don’t.”

What Onaka actually said to Bennett was:

Additionally, I verify that the information in the copy of the Certificate of Live Birth for Mr. Obama that you attached with your request matches the original record in our files.

What Onaka actually said to Kobach was:

  1. The original Certificate of Live Birth for Barack Hussein Obama, II, is on file with the State of Hawaii Department of Health.
  2. The file number for the Certificate of live Birth for Barack Hussein Obama, II, is 151 61 10641.
  3. The information contained in the “Certificate of Live Birth” published at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/27/president-obamas-long-form-birth-certificate and reviewed by me on the date of this verification, a copy of which is attached with your request, matches the information contained in the original Certificate of Live Birth for Barack Hussein Obama, II on file with the State of Hawaii Department of Health.

Photo of cat

Kansas challenge settled, plus another Hawaiian verification

Joe Montgomery’s ballot challenge to Barack Obama’s place on the 2012 general election ballot for President of the United States was withdrawn, and so the three-man Kansas Board of Objections decided there was nothing to vote on. Obama stays on the ballot.

Birther dissident leader Orly Taitz showed up and wanted to make her own objection, but the filing deadline had passed. She was not allowed to object, although the Board let her tale a little.

A verification received over the weekend from the State of Hawaii to Kansas that Obama was indeed born in Hawaii, reports TPMMuckraker, is just icing on the cake which remained sitting uneaten on an otherwise empty chair.

The Oh for Goodness Sakes! blog has a fantastic first-hand report of the hearing by slash2k.

Press coverage of Taitz in Kansas:

1961 Hawaii Race codes: disclosed!

It now seems almost certain that in 1961, the penciled codes on Hawaiian Certificates of Live birth were unique to that department and did not follow any federal standard.

In the wee hours of this morning John Woodman published a remarkable article on his blog: Exclusive! “New Girl” Confirms Her Parents’ Race — and I Crack the Actual Entries, Confirming that Arpaio’s Codes Don’t Match the Hawaii Codes, Either, in which he documents that Hawaiian race code “3” designates “part Hawaiian” (not “Indian” as claimed by the Cold Case Posse).

I had disclosed that a few of us knew the identity of the person whose birth certificate Jerome Corsi redacted (inadequately) and published in WorldNetDaily. Mr. Woodman actually contacted the holder of that certificate, who had loaned it to Corsi at the request of a “friend.” She confirmed that her father and mother are of mixed ancestry including Hawaiian. Mr. Corsi, if you are reading this, SHE WANTS HER CERTIFICATE BACK! It was a loan and the only one she has.

Now, thanks to the discovery of another new certificate registered in April of 1961 (signed by none other than Verna K. Lee herself), we have another code:

xxxx certifcate_Detail

Code 2 is “Hawaiian.” This certificate also confirms Woodman’s result that code “3” is “part Hawaiian.”

For the benefit of those not familiar with the coder’s handwriting, here’s another example of the “2” from the same form.

xxxx_certifcate_sex_detail

So here are the codes so far:

Race Code
Caucasian/White 1
Hawaiian 2
Part Hawaiian 3
What “African” was called 9

 

Let me remind you of the faux code table that the Cold Case Posse presented:

image9

This  table that the Cold Case Posse tried to foist on the nation as the codes used to code authentic birth certificates from Hawaii, claims that Code 2 was “Negro” and code 3 is “Indian.” Verna K. Lee states that no mistakes were made on her watch and so this proves beyond any doubt that Corsi, Zullo and company lied both about having ANY 1961 race code table, federal or Hawaiian.

In addition to presenting a false code table (actually one from 1968), the Cold Case Posse also played another trick. They made the false assertion that using their table, there was an inconsistency in Obama’s birth certificate because according to them “9” means “not stated” and Obama’s father’s race was stated. However, code “9” (even it were listed correctly in the table) does not mean “not stated” but “unknown or not stated.” African is an ambiguous race (there are black, white, Arab and Asians in Kenya). It is a perfectly normal response to code “unknown” when the racial designation doesn’t tell the coder what race to use.

Based on my experience with race codes in health data systems that goes back to 1974, I have never seen a race table where Hawaiian appeared near the top. White was always first, followed by black and then other stuff.  Only a uniquely-Hawaiian code set would be structured like this. The last code in the table is usually the catch all for what doesn’t fit the preceding codes. On some items, code “0” is used for “not stated” such as the “Date Last Worked” item under mother. I have also seen “0” on death certificates when the occupation is not stated.

So what is code “9?” If I had to guess, it’s “other” but we really don’t know; however, there is no evidence of internal inconsistency in Barack Obama’s birth certificate and the codes on it.

Thanks to the individual who pointed me to the certificate featured in this article.

Cold Case Posse: more contradictions in their story

The Cold Case Posse attempted to smear the State of Hawaii by misrepresenting their laws and practices. In the process, they contradicted themself. The Cold Case Posse video stated:

In 1982 Hawaii legalized what had been its unofficial policy for decades by making laws that codified Hawaii out of state and foreign births as Hawaiian births. Observe this letter …

Let’s look at the letter from the Director of Health, which I will transcribe from the video (emphasis added).

This bill would require the Department of Health to issue birth certificates for children born or adopted anywhere in the world if their parents were legal residents of the Territory or State of Hawaii and paid income tax in Hawaii at the time of their birth or adoption.

The Department supports this measure, but wishes to point out that such a new activity could have a workload/budgetary impact in the delayed registration section of the Vital Records Program. While the Department presently has no data to project the size of such impact, a large number of requests for such birth certificates would require additional, staffing and funds for the program.

Note that the letter states that out of state registrations is a “new activity” and that Department has “no data to project the size of such[workload] impact.” If they had been doing it for decades, how is it a “new activity” and how could they have any data as to the workload?

imageThe fact is that the 1955 Revised Law specified only the registration of births in Hawaii, and vital statistics agencies don’t do things the law (inset) doesn’t authorize. Note the phrase: “district in which the birth occurred.”

The other false suggestion from the video is that out of state births were registered as “Hawaiian births.” As the Special Assistant to the Hawaii Attorney General stated:

…anyone who receives a birth certificate under this section would have noted on their birth certificate the physical location of their actual birth.

It is not a “Hawaiian birth” when the birth is indicated to have taken place somewhere else.