Here we go again, t. hall meeting wants Obamas Birth cert.

Danno · July 21, 2009

It's hard to believe that this far into Obama's term this subject is growing at every turn but watch these folks

Question their GOP rep. on this issue.

They also flog him for voting for Obama's CAP N TRade tax scheme.

name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="

type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>">

name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="

type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350">

Trumplestiltskin · July 21, 2009

_Simpson_ · July 21, 2009

Painful to watch

NickD · July 21, 2009

USCIS also wanted to see my birth certificate, hadn't use that in years and had to play games with Illinois to get copies. Any illegal can provide a USC birth certificate for their kids born here.

Don't know who in the hell Illinois hired to convert all the original birth certificates to a computer database, but they sure didn't know how to type, had so many errors in mine, told them, I can't use this damn thing. Took 3 months of fooling around to get them squared away. They can't type in Bogota either, wife needed a copy, that wasn't too bad, but since she was in Venezuela, we had to hire an attorney in Bogota to process the request. Her daughter was born in Venezuela, another country that cannot type, that was a mess, had a pay a thousand buck bride to the courts so they would process it in a timely manner, otherwise we would have to wait two years. With a thousand bucks in US dollars in their pocket, they processed it in a day just to give us an accurate copy. This is one thing I did not have to do with Illinois, just paid ten bucks a copy, but still very difficult to deal with them without using foul language.

My wife's maiden name is German, only five characters long, they typed in a "V" instead of a "B", if you look at your keyboard, these two keys are adjacent to each other. And even though the USCIS has a Spanish speaking line, we had to pay another couple of hundred bucks to have them translated. I don't even speak Spanish, but had no problem reading the place, the name of the parents, my wife's birthday that is just about all the information on this piece of paper.

Maybe Obama is having the same problem, but you would think as president, he would have some pull.

Would think, Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. would have made an issue of this since he hates democrats, but he did butcher the oath. But Obama made him correct that the next day, after somebody could find a bible. Wondered about separation of religion from state on this issue.

Do you suppose they will deport Obama? And if they do, will he still be president? Pretty clever by picking Joe or Nancy to fill that spot, then we really would be in a mess.

Mr. Big Dog · July 21, 2009

Danno · July 21, 2009

Painful to watch

Some people are getting so feed up with this refusal to show the Birth cert that it wouldn't surprise me is there is a -March on the Mall before it's over with.

HAve people dropped the "He's a (planted) Muslim" theory?

I never saw where that one even had legs.

Edited July 21, 2009 by Danno

The_Dude · July 21, 2009

What is more difficult to believe is that some people still subscribe to this udder nonsense.

NickD · July 21, 2009

Does this make any difference?

"Born in the U.S.A.August 21, 2008Updated: November 1, 2008The truth about Obama's birth certificate.SummaryIn June, the Obama campaign released a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate to quell speculative charges that he might not be a natural-born citizen. But the image prompted more blog-based skepticism about the document's authenticity. And recently, author Jerome Corsi, whose book attacks Obama, said in a TV interview that the birth certificate the campaign has is "fake."

We beg to differ. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.

Update, Nov. 1: The director of Hawaii’s Department of Health confirmed Oct. 31 that Obama was born in Honolulu.

AnalysisUpdate Nov. 1: The Associated Press quoted Chiyome Fukino as saying that both she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Fukino also was quoted by several other news organizations. The Honolulu Advertiser quoted Fukino as saying the agency had been bombarded by requests, and that the registrar of statistics had even been called in at home in the middle of the night.

Honolulu Advertiser, Nov. 1 2008:

"This has gotten ridiculous," state health director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said yesterday. "There are plenty of other, important things to focus on, like the economy, taxes, energy." . . . Will this be enough to quiet the doubters? "I hope so," Fukino said. "We need to get some work done."

Fukino said she has “personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."

Since we first wrote about Obama's birth certificate on June 16, speculation on his citizenship has continued apace. Some claim that Obama posted a fake birth certificate to his Web page. That charge leaped from the blogosphere to the mainstream media earlier this week when Jerome Corsi, author of a book attacking Obama, repeated the claim in an Aug. 15 interview with Steve Doocy on Fox News.

Corsi:

Well, what would be really helpful is if Senator Obama would release primary documents like his birth certificate. The campaign has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website. How is anybody supposed to really piece together his life?

Doocy:

What do you mean they have a "false birth certificate" on their Web site?

Corsi:

The original birth certificate of Obama has never been released, and the campaign refuses to release it.

Doocy:

Well, couldn't it just be a State of Hawaii-produced duplicate?

Corsi:

No, it's a -- there's been good analysis of it on the Internet, and it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop. It's a fake document that's on the Web site right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce.

Corsi isn't the only skeptic claiming that the document is a forgery. Among the most frequent objections we saw on forums, blogs and e-mails are:

The birth certificate doesn't have a raised seal.
It isn't signed.
No creases from folding are evident in the scanned version.
In the zoomed-in view, there's a strange halo around the letters.
The certificate number is blacked out.
The date bleeding through from the back seems to say "2007," but the document wasn't released until 2008.
The document is a "certification of birth," not a "certificate of birth."

Recently FactCheck representatives got a chance to spend some time with the birth certificate, and we can attest to the fact that it is real and three-dimensional and resides at the Obama headquarters in Chicago. We can assure readers that the certificate does bear a raised seal, and that it's stamped on the back by Hawaii state registrar Alvin T. Onaka (who uses a signature stamp rather than signing individual birth certificates). We even brought home a few photographs.

The Obama birth certificate, held by FactCheck writer Joe Miller

Alvin T. Onaka's signature stamp

The raised seal

Blowup of text

You can click on the photos to get full-size versions, which haven't been edited in any way, except that some have been rotated 90 degrees for viewing purposes.

The certificate has all the elements the State Department requires for proving citizenship to obtain a U.S. passport: "

your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records." The names, date and place of birth, and filing date are all evident on the scanned version, and you can see the seal above.

The document is a "certification of birth," also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents' hometowns. The short form is printed by the state and draws from a database with fewer details. The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department. We tried to ask the Hawaii DOH why they only offer the short form, among other questions, but they have not given a response.

The scan released by the campaign shows halos around the black text, making it look (to some) as though the text might have been pasted on top of an image of security paper. But the document itself has no such halos, nor do the close-up photos we took of it. We conclude that the halo seen in the image produced by the campaign is a digital artifact from the scanning process.

We asked the Obama campaign about the date stamp and the blacked-out certificate number. The certificate is stamped June 2007, because that's when Hawaii officials produced it for the campaign, which requested that document and "all the records we could get our hands on" according to spokesperson Shauna Daly. The campaign didn't release its copy until 2008, after speculation began to appear on the Internet questioning Obama's citizenship. The campaign then rushed to release the document, and the rush is responsible for the blacked-out certificate number. Says Shauna: "[We] couldn't get someone on the phone in Hawaii to tell us whether the number represented some secret information, and we erred on the side of blacking it out. Since then we've found out it's pretty irrelevant for the outside world." The document we looked at did have a certificate number; it is 151 1961 - 010641.

Blowup of certificate number

Some of the conspiracy theories that have circulated about Obama are quite imaginative. One conservative blogger suggested that the campaign might have obtained a valid Hawaii birth certificate, soaked it in solvent, then reprinted it with Obama's information. Of course, this anonymous blogger didn't have access to the actual document and presents this as just one possible "scenario" without any evidence that such a thing actually happened or is even feasible.

We also note that so far none of those questioning the authenticity of the document have produced a shred of evidence that the information on it is incorrect. Instead, some speculate that somehow, maybe, he was born in another country and doesn't meet the Constitution's requirement that the president be a "natural-born citizen."

We think our colleagues at PolitiFact.com, who also dug into some of these loopy theories put it pretty well: "It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world’s biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything’s possible. But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what’s reasonable has to take over."

In fact, the conspiracy would need to be even deeper than our colleagues realized. In late July, a researcher looking to dig up dirt on Obama instead found a birth announcement that had been published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961:

Obama's birth announcement

The announcement was posted by a pro-Hillary Clinton blogger who grudgingly concluded that Obama "likely" was born Aug. 4, 1961 in Honolulu.

Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday. We suggest that those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat. The evidence is clear: Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A.

Update, August 26: We received responses to some of our questions from the Hawaii Department of Health. They couldn't tell us anything about their security paper, but they did answer another frequently-raised question: why is Obama's father's race listed as "African"? Kurt Tsue at the DOH told us that father's race and mother's race are supplied by the parents, and that "we accept what the parents self identify themselves to be." We consider it reasonable to believe that Barack Obama, Sr., would have thought of and reported himself as "African." It's certainly not the slam dunk some readers have made it out to be.

When we asked about the security borders, which look different from some other examples of Hawaii certifications of live birth, Kurt said "The borders are generated each time a certified copy is printed. A citation located on the bottom left hand corner of the certificate indicates which date the form was revised." He also confirmed that the information in the short form birth certificate is sufficient to prove citizenship for "all reasonable purposes."

–by Jess Henig, with Joe Miller SourcesUnited States Department of State. "Application for a U.S. Passport." Accessed 20 Aug. 2008.

State of Hawaii Department of Health. "Request for Certified Copy of Birth Record." Accessed 20 Aug. 2008.

Hollyfield, Amy. "Obama's Birth Certificate: Final Chapter." Politifact.com. 27 Jun. 2008.

The Associated Press. "State declares Obama birth certificate genuine" 31 Oct 2008.

Nakaso, Dan. "Obama's certificate of birth OK, state says; Health director issues voucher in response to 'ridiculous' barrage" Honolulu Advertiser 1 Nov 2008.

FactCheck.org's staff, not the Annenberg Center, is responsible for this material."

From http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

Seems like Hilary would have used this in her campaign against Obama, plus all the other candidates, not only republicans, but democrats as well. Also have the supreme court and a republican congress at the time.

Here is some more information:

<h3 class="blue">"KOKUA LINE</h3> <h1 id="storyTitle">Born identity</h1> Birth certificate styles adjust to fit times and regulations

By June Watanabe

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jun 06, 2009

(Single Page View) | Return to Paginated View

Question: What is the state's policy for issuing a "Certification of Live Birth" versus a "Certificate of Live Birth"? My first, second and fourth children received certificates, but my third and fifth children received certifications. Why the difference? The certificate contains more information, such as the name of hospital, certifier's name and title; attendant's name and title, etc. The certification has only the child's name, date and time of birth, sex, city/island/county of birth, mother's maiden name, mother's race, father's name and father's race. Why doesn't the state just issue certificates? When did it stop issuing certificates? Is it possible to obtain certificates for my third and fifth children?

Answer: No, you can't obtain a "certificate of live birth" anymore.

The state Department of Health no longer issues copies of paper birth certificates as was done in the past, said spokeswoman Janice Okubo.

The department only issues "certifications" of live births, and that is the "official birth certificate" issued by the state of Hawaii, she said.

And, it's only available in electronic form.

Okubo explained that the Health Department went paperless in 2001.

"At that time, all information for births from 1908 (on) was put into electronic files for consistent reporting," she said.

Information about births is transferred electronically from hospitals to the department.

"The electronic record of the birth is what (the Health Department) now keeps on file in order to provide same-day certified copies at our help window for most requests," Okubo said.

Asked for more information about the short-form versus long-form birth documents, Okubo said the Health Department "does not have a short-form or long-form certificate."

"The birth certificate form has been modified over the years and decades to conform to national standards and models," she said.

Okubo also emphasized the certification form "contains all the information needed by all federal government agencies for transactions requiring a birth certificate."

She added that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the state's current certification of live birth "as an official birth certificate meeting all federal and other requirements."

The issue of what constitutes an official Hawaii birth certificate received national attention during last year's presidential campaign. Those who doubted Barack Obama's American citizenship called the copy of the Hawaii birth document posted on his campaign Web site a fake.

Asked about that document, Okubo said, "This is the same certified copy everyone receives when they request a birth certificate."

We found a discussion of "the truth about Obama's birth certificate" on the Web site FactCheck.org -- www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html.

The organization describes itself as "a nonpartisan, nonprofit 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics."

It says a "certification of live birth" is, in fact, a short-form official birth certificate. Information included in the document might differ from state to state.

Question: Who severely cut back a lot of trees at Kokee Beach Park in the Portlock area, leaving a huge pile of rubbish? I surf off the park and note over the years that it has always been kept clean. The trees seem to be christmasberry and sea grape trees. They added greatly to the ambience of an otherwise barren park. They were cut back severely and left in trash heaps. That's unusual as the contractor has kept the park neat for years and never left huge piles of trash. Was this legal cutting?

Answer: No. It turns out the trees were cut without authorization.

The cuttings were removed after we inquired about it a few weeks ago.

Officials have their "suspicions" as to who chopped the trees and why, said Lester Chang, director of the city Department of Parks and Recreation. However, he declined to voice those suspicions without proof.

The main thing, he said, was that the trees were not butchered or damaged. "It wasn't a vandalism type" of cut, Chang said. Whoever did it "did it with care."

He said the trees are regularly trimmed either in-house or by a contractor and done so "from the standpoint of health and safety." They weren't scheduled for trimming when the unauthorized cuts were made.

Write to "Kokua Line" at Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana, Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or e-mail kokualine@starbulletin.com.

Question: What is the state's policy for issuing a "Certification of Live Birth" versus a "Certificate of Live Birth"? My first, second and fourth children received certificates, but my third and fifth children received certifications. Why the difference? The certificate contains more information, such as the name of hospital, certifier's name and title; attendant's name and title, etc. The certification has only the child's name, date and time of birth, sex, city/island/county of birth, mother's maiden name, mother's race, father's name and father's race. Why doesn't the state just issue certificates? When did it stop issuing certificates? Is it possible to obtain certificates for my third and fifth children?

PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION: BRYANT FUKUTOMI / BFUKUTOMI@STARBULLETIN.COM