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.
Donofrio’s latest
Leo. C. Donofrio
The latest being:
Usually I can follow what Leo Donofrio is arguing, but this latest foray into Hawaii has left me somewhat baffled. His mistakes are often subtle, but not so here. If I may summarize:
1) Hawaiian law requires that data supporting official statements be made public
2) Dr. Funkino made an official statement saying that she had examined Barack Obama’s vital records and that they show that he was born in Hawaii.
3) Therefore Hawaiian law requires the State of Hawaii to provide copies of Obama’s vital records to the public.
Before looking at the premises, I like to apply a rule of thumb I call the “smell test”. We know that in Hawaii vital records are private; they are protected from disclosure by law (§ 338-18 Disclosure of records HRS_0338-0018.htm). Now if state department of health director Fukino is prohibited by law from disclosing the record, how can she, by making an official statement permissible by law, (disclosure of index data) make herself suddenly not bound by the other disclosure restrictions of the law? When one arrives at an absurd result, it’s time to inspect the validity of the argument. (more…)
Ghostwriters in the sky
Author Obama
During the last election, rumors flew about saying that former radical and education activist Bill Ayers wrote all or part of Barack Obama’s book Dreams from My Father. This rumor morphed into a small cottage industry of analysis trying to prove Ayer’s involvement in the book including a series of articles by WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill.
These allegations have been repeated in a number of right wing web sites such as The American Thinker and The Free Republic. Now WorldNetDaily has a new article, Author confirms Bill Ayers helped Obama write ‘Dreams’.
Of course, the “author” WND talks about is not the author of Obama’s book, but that of a new book, Barack and Michelle: An American Marriage by Christopher Andersen. Andersen should know because he had access to unnamed sources close to Obama. I should say that Cashill claims Andersen supports his view (in fact I have no confirmation of this).
The scenario alleged is in the typical nobama style. If alleges a fact (Obama was facing a deadline) that no one can easily verify but might accept because it it plausibled, it alleges another fact (Ayers lived nearby) that is non-trivial to verify and then it offers another allegation (the neighbors knew…) that no one can easily verify, but might accept because it is plausible and asserted. It is a good example of substitution of speculation for evidence made in the form of an argument. But this claim has no more substance to it than the travel ban to Pakistan argument, the born in Kenya argument and the Indonesian adoption argument: none.
So did Bill Ayers write Dreams from My Father? There is nothing in the WND article that would lead a rationally thinking person to jump to any conclusion.
The Betrayal blog attacks Dr. C (Updated)
Dr. Conspiracy
Readers here may recall an article I published countering Leo Donofrio’s attack against FactCheck.org: Donofrio misfires. Donofrio had made the same mistake Mario Apuzzo made when he attempted to make Barack Obama into a current British Citizen through ignoring the repeal of portions of the British Nationality Act of 1948. One can see on the surface that the analysis is flawed because the conclusion is obviously something that the various British legislation did not intend. This is an application of the general principle: British legislators know their laws better than we do.
Nonetheless, I did make some mistakes in my analysis, pointed out by commenters here, and I hastily corrected my article, and did so several times, sometimes marked with [update] tags to indicate new material, and sometimes not.
Nobamas do not understand the concept of correcting mistakes, considering it somehow shameful (and this explains why they ignore contrary evidence and continue to push long-discredited speculation). Well, my corrections have come to the attention of the Betrayal blog who said:
Factcheck.org endorsed analyst caught scrubbing false data after original publication of this report.
There is a difference between “data” and “conclusions” (but I guess “false data” sounds worse.) I replied at The Betrayal, and we’ll see if it passes moderation:
You people are so totally silly. Commenters on my blog pointed out some errors and I fixed them. Duh. Has The Betrayal never corrected a mistake? (well maybe not…)
This isn’t a game of “gotcha”. You don’t get points when I make a mistake. You get points when you are right, and the final result is that Donofrio is wrong.
[Update!] (more…)
Tell it to the judge
Justice
This article shares what some of the judges have had to say about the “birther” lawsuits.
Unlike in Alice in Wonderland, simply saying something is so does not make it so….
She has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as President of the United States. Instead, she uses her Complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric…
After conducting a hearing on Plaintiff’s motion, the Court finds that Plaintiff’s claims are frivolous.
Federal judge Clay D. Land in Rhodes v. MacDonald.
Plaintiff’s complaint, at its core, is but another attempt to embroil a United States District Court in an ongoing controversy over whether Barack Obama is a native-born citizen of the United States of America…. As in Hollister, “[t]he right thing to do is to bring [this case] to an early end.”
Federal Judge Richard Lazarra in Cook v. Simtech.
Lawyers who come to court to present grievances, however, are held to a higher standard than disadvantaged or unrepresented persons. For lawyers, there are rules…. John D. Hemenway is hereby reprimanded for his part in the preparation, prosecution and filing of a legally frivolous suit in this court.
Federal Judge James Robertson in Hollister v. Soetoro.
More to come, as opinions become available.
