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.
The first problem with the Donofrio’s argument is that premise 1 is faulty. Real Hawaiian law (and Donofrio quotes it) says that disclosure is not required when it conflicts with privacy provisions. Therefore disclosure laws do not apply in this case.
The second problem is that the information Donofrio wants is not covered by the statue. Donofrio quotes the law: “(15) Information collected and maintained for the purpose of making information available to the general public” but vital records are not maintained “for the purpose of making information available to the general public” with the exception of very basic information (such as that released to the newspapers resulting in Obama’s birth announcement being printed). Other data, such as the name of the hospital, the name of the doctor and other non-index data, not collected and maintained for public information and is not included under the statute.
The final problem is that the conclusion doesn’t follow the language of the premises. Even if disclosure were required (and it isn’t) only what is necessary to support the public statement need be disclosed, and there is nothing beyond the public statement’s name and birth location that is necessary to support the public statement. So again Donofrio gets nothing beyond the original statement.
The best Donofrio could expect to get out of Hawaii is a copy of the Birth Certificate completely blacked except for the words “Barack”, “Hussein”, “Obama”, “Hawaii” on them.
The State of Hawaii declared certain information should be disclosed and they made an exception in the case of private data, and other statutes prohibit disclosure of specific private data, that is, vital records. Donofrio claims that a state official has the power to override the law and change protected data into unprotected just by writing a note on some letterhead and signing it. That is just silly. “Gotcha” is not a legal principle.
Donofrio said:
TerriK locked onto 92F-12(a)(15) and applied it to the July 27th press release by requesting all relevant records thereto. It was a very intelligent and savvy analysis, especially for a lay person.
I say, it’s a pretty stupid analysis, particular for a lawyer to shill. It’s a legal argument only a birther could love.
The other silliness from Donofrio is the fantastic belief that anything he turns up in Hawaii could make the birthers change their minds. If Dr. Fukino’s plain statement did not suffice, nothing will.
Leo has a problem. He’s fallen in love with the attention he’s getting from the group of birthers who praise his “wisdom and patriotism” on his blog, the group I like to call the “Leotards.”
He can’t get enough of their devotion, so now he has to keep finding new examples of his “brilliance” for the Leotards to drool over.
This nonsense is just the latest.
Seems pretty evident to me that birth records are not kept to make them public, and thus, don’t fall under the open records regs.
But we’re just laymen, right Doc? We’re not brilliant part time attorneys who filed the perfect case with the SCOTUS only to have them deny it cert because – darn it! – the case just wasn’t ripe.
But wait. Neither is Leo…
Leo is another meretricious shyster who should be locked up for sedition.
Lindsey Graham call the birthers “crazy”:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/sen-graham-calls-beck-a-c_n_306434.html
OT: here is my latest street photograph.
I read it. It’s like the inmates are running the asylum. I hope they keep it up. Obama will be re-elected.
Here is something from the so called Canada free press, a site that is in the running with WND and the post and e-mail for most anti-Obama articles they can write and post.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/15262
It shows why it is more about hate of President Obama and the overall democratic ideas than the BC and the whole natural born citizen issue…
From the article
* Obama Admits Birther Ineligibility; Resigns Effective Immediately
* 20 Million Illegal Aliens Voluntarily Head Back to Mexico Due to Guilt Over Displacing American Workers
* 100 Top Wall Street Bankers Arrested for “Bail Out” Scam; Funds, Plus Interest, Returned to U.S. Treasury
* Kenya Denies Asylum to Deposed President Obama
* Income Tax, Abortion, and Affirmative Action Ruled Unconstitutional
* Nancy Pelosi’s Head x-rayed: Nothing Found!
* Democratic Congress Rejects Health Care Reform: Too Costly and Intrusive Expansion of Government
* Government of Mexico Rejects Latest Foreign Aid from U.S., Will No Longer Accept Hand Outs
* Supreme Court Rules That Labor Unions Violate Anti-trust Laws, Must Be Dismantled
* Chevron, BP, and Shell Admit “Huge Glut” of Oil Reserves; Slash Gasoline Prices to $1.00 a Gallon
* English as Official Language Passes Both Chambers of Congress: All Hispanic Members Vote Nada
* 450 Death Row Inmates in California Prisons Executed Simultaneously to Ease Budget Crunch
* Report: Spinach Can Cause Brain Cancer. Cure Possible By Eating Huge Number of Snickers Bars
* United Nations Praises Israel for Acting Responsibly By Defending Itself
* Matt Drudge Buys CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC: Appoints Sarah Palin Director of Human Resources
* Box Office Failure of anti-capitalism Movie Drives Michael Moore into Bankruptcy
* Roman Polanski Pardoned by Obama: Urged to Run for Governor of New York
* Keith Olbermann Arrested For Impersonating Journalist
Someone is sowing the seeds of dissatisfaction through publications like WND, post and email, CFP, Newsmax. We know WND is owned by rich conservatives. I’ve said this before, I think it’s the neo-cons.They know exactly what they’re doing. They want to incite the next Tim McVeigh to “water the tree of liberty”, kill innocent Americans, so they can say See? You’re better off under our rule. At least we know the FBI is keeping an eye on who’s buying lots of hair bleach and nail polish remover, the new-bomb-of-choice ingredients. Before OKC, no one was watching who was buying ammonium nitrate. It’s not like law enforcement doesn’t have enough to do and these a$$clowns are inciting more people to violence.
That was pretty funny. I wasn’t aware birthers had a sense of humor.
This just in, Oct. 2d:
“Leo Donofrio Is No Longer Spokesperson For TerriK.
“As we move from blog reports to litigation, TerriK and I have decided it would be best for me to conduct my own investigation. We had previously decided that I would not take the step from spokesperson to actual counsel for her. But I will no longer be spokesperson for her either.”
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/leo-donofrio-is-no-longer-spokesperson-for-terrik/
What was it I said about birthers not being able to cooperate with each other? Leo is a loner. He probably figured out he doesn’t have a leg to stand on with TerriK’s case.( by reading DrC perhaps?) I think what Leo is working up to is stipulating Obama was born in Hawaii, accepting what Hawaii says, perhaps after he gets them to re- release the index data. It’s going to be a hard sell to birtherdom. But he wants to circle back to dual citizen and two parent citizen arguments and drop not born in Hawaii. The easiest way to do that is to go it alone and try to use the force of his influence over his followers to convince them it’s the right thing to do instead of getting bogged down in fruitless litigation with TerriK.
Kimba, you might be right. If you notice all of those publications have similar stories. And the one about the military coup by Newsmax was just the latest attmempt to rile up the masses….However there is an interesting article regarding how all of this is affecting the GOP’s standing as the “opposition party”….
“How weak is the Republican brand right now? This issue came up yesterday when a Media Matters criticized The Hill for failing to mention the GOP’s poor polling numbers in a story on the 2010 elections. Similarly, I recently suggested that that the damaged Republican brand might limit the number of seats that the party picks up. But is the party really worse off than previous opposition parties at this point in the election cycle?”
“The overall finding is simple — the GOP’s standing relative to the Democrats on both measures is worse than any opposition party in the sample. For instance, the Pew data show that the Republicans are currently viewed more negatively than any minority party in the previous four midterms in terms of both net favorables and the difference in net favorables between parties:**”
Is it me or are most of the American people smart enough to see all of this for what it is, and may hold the GOP responsible? I think the GOP has made their bed with the so called extreme wing and now have to ride it out until its conclusion, which may be 2010 or 2012.
Sorry, I forgot the link…
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/assessing_the_gop_brand.php#
I liked this line:
“If you get rewarded for being a jerk you are going to keep doing it,” he said.
I was wondering the same thing. So far Leo has been all talk and not action. I feel that deep down inside he knew that this case was a loser and didn’t want to be forced into filing and having to follow through….With this he can stand on the sidelines and when TerriK fails, he can then say that he knew that would happen and that is why he is focused on the 2 citizen parent definition. Leo likes to “monday morning quaterback”, give advice and opinion but doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. He like being thought of as some legal mastermind but if he filed and lost his so called followers would realize that he like Orly and Mario have no shot….
That’s OK, Terri can get Pissant and the rest of the Freeper ‘Sea Lawyers’ to take over her case for her, and run it into the endzone, helping to guarantee the victory that God has secured for them… Halleluah
I’m just curious, has anyone tried to get a letter of verification under section (g)(5) of the hawaii law cited above? It seems like you could send in a request asking the doh to verify that obama was born in hawaii, in hospital X, delivered by doctor Y, and if you’re associated with a group defined in (e)(5), which seem pretty broadly defined, and are working on an educational project, you could get an official confirmation letter.
Yes, I tried that last year and got no response. They never cashed my money order.
Was your money order returned? (There’s a minor birfer issue about someone (“SueB”) who requested all these documents about Obama and his relatives and sent a money order and Hawaii hasn’t returned the money order therefore it is processing the request.)