Lou Dobbs vs. Bill O'Reilly on the Birth Certificate Transparency Issue: Take the Online Poll at the TCOT Report

You can take the Lou Dobbs vs. Bill O'Reilly online Poll on the Birth Certificate Transparency Issue at the TCOT Report here.

Meme Wars Part 2: "Birthers", "Transparency Dodgers", "Transparency Champions", and Left Wing Propagandist David Weigel of the Washington Independent

After my blogpost yesterday posing some legitimate questions in response to Dr. Chiyome Fukino's ambiguous restatement of the basis upon which the State of Hawaii issued President Obama's 2007 Certification of Live Birth, left wing propagandist David Weigel, who masquerades as a real journalist for the Washington Independent, made these false charges against me.

Weigel added another false charge later, claiming that I am trying to advance conspiracy theories.

To the contrary, I am simply calling upon President Obama to live up to his promise of transparency. That's it. Nothing more.

For the record, I will state again so that perhaps Mr. Weigel can accurately describe my position on this: there is no evidence whatsoever to support the "birther" claim that President Obama was born in Kenya. None.

Mr. Weigel is obviously a transparency dodger, however, because he refuses to exercise even an ounce of curiosity and follow up Dr. Chiyome Fukino's ambiguous statement of yesterday.

Here's a Journalism 101 question that makes Mr. Weigel and his fellow left wing propagandists quiver in their boots when they contemplate asking it of Dr. Fukino:

Dr. Fukino, you say you reviewed the vital records of the State of Hawaii in making your determination that the 2007 Certification of Live Birth was issued in accordance with Hawaii statutes. Did you review an actual physical hard copy of the 1961 Certificate of Live Birth, signed by the attending physician, or did you simply review the digital forensics of the process by which the record currently existing in the State of Hawaii Birth Record Database for President Obama was created?

And here's one Mr. Weigel ought to consider asking Press Secretary Gibbs:

Mr. Gibbs, why doesn't the President simply put this entire birth certificate issue to rest once and for all and authorize both the Kapiolani Medical Center and the State of Hawaii to release all original documents in their posession related to his 1961 birth?

The simple and transparent release of these records would end this issue.

As American citizens, we have a right to ask that a President who promised transparency be held accountable to that promise.

Dr. Chiyome Fukino Issues Another "Transparency Dodger" Statement on President Obama's Birth Certificate

Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of the Health Department of the State of Hawaii, issued another public statement yesterday, July 27, 2009, on the issue of the validity of the Certification of Live Birth the Hawaii Department of Health issued to President Obama in 2007, which has been displayed prominently throughout the internet. Here's the statement:

"I ... have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen," Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said in a brief statement. "I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago."

You can read the full story here, and the October 2008 statement here.

Dr. Fukino's statement adds no new information to the discussion, and is only slightly less finely parsed than her October 31, 2008 statement. It earns her the title of "transparency dodger" and will inevitably require a more detailed statement in the future because of what it fails to reveal.

Apparently, Dr. Fukino continues to refuse questions from the press on the topic, which does nothing but make skeptics want more answers.

Dr. Fukino could do us all a service by adding more information that will move this inquiry towards a final conclusion. Here are the questions Dr. Fukino needs to answer:

1. When you say you have "seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii Department of Health verifying Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural born citizen" does that mean you viewed a physical hard copy of the original hospital issued 1961 Certificate of Live Birth or does it mean you have reviewed the electronic records upon which the 2007 issued Certification of Live Birth was based ?

2. Will you formally request of the President of the United States that he authorize you to reveal every detail of information included in the original vital records of his birth maintained by the State of Hawaii Department of Health ?

3. Can you name the hospital in which President Obama was born ?

4. Can you tell us the name of the attending physician at President Obama's birth according to the vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii Department of Health?

5. If you reviewed a physical hard copy of the original hospital issued 1961 Certificate of Live Birth, will you release that document to the public upon receipt of authorization by the President ?

6. If you viewed only the electronic records of the original 1961 hospital records of President Obama's birth, can you tell us what became of the original physical hard copy of that document ? Was it discarded and destroyed ? Is it stored in a warehouse ? If it is stored in a warehouse, can you authorize its release?

The issue of what Dr. Fukino actually viewed to make the determination that the President was in fact Hawaii born is quite relevant, since the State of Hawaii switched all of its birth records from hard copy to digital in 2001.

Almost all news commentators, including Chris Mathews of MSNBC recently, have assumed that Dr. Fukino's October 31, 2008 statement meant she had physically viewed the original hard copy of the President's 1961 birth certificate. Yesterday's statement seems to indicate it is more likely that Dr. Fukino viewed an electronic record and not a physical hard copy, but it is still not definitive.

The liberal blog TPM agrees with me that Dr. Fukino made a very serious public relations error when she failed (until last month) to disclose that the Department of Health went digital only in 2001. Here's what they said in a blogpost yesterday:



"A lot of time and effort could have been saved if Hawaiian officials had said from the beginning that the long
forms for every person born in Hawaii from 1908 to 2001 were discarded in 2001."

We can summarize the facts to date as follows:

There is absolutely no evidence to support the "birther" claim that Obama was born in Kenya.

There is significant secondary evidence (the 2007 Certification of Live Birth, Contemporaneous 1961 Newspaper birth announcements) to support the argument Obama was born in Hawaii.

However, though primary evidence of his birth in Hawaii is thought to exist in hard copy form in Kapiolani Hospital (which he claims as his birthplace) this data has not been released.

The State of Hawaii Department of Health Statements, rather than shedding light on the source of primary evidence in their possession, have fueled suspicions that information is being withheld. And, in fact, some relevant information has been withheld.

Meme Wars: "Birthers", "Transparency Dodgers", and "Transparency Champions"

Establishment Republicans tremble when the left attacks anyone who questions the facts surrounding Barack Obama's birth certificate by trotting out the "birther" meme.

As commonly used, a "birther" is a right wing nut case who believes that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, is not eligible to be President, and that a vast conspiracy exists to keep this evidence from the public. Orly Taitz and Philip Berg are the most prominent "birthers". Though this group has certainly been industrious in filing lawsuits on this issue, none of the lawsuits have gone anywhere. This is primarily the case because there is absolutely no credible evidence to support the contention that President Obama was born in Kenya. Not a stitch.

This doesn't mean that the President has answered all questions related to the documentation surrounding his birth. And it also doesn't mean that citizens, journalists, and politicians don't have the right to ask those legitimate questions.

There are three groups of people involved in the birth certificate discussion: "birthers", "transparency dodgers", and "transparency champions." Look for the left to start falsely labeling legitimate journalists and "transparency champions" as "birthers" very shortly.

And look for many Establishment Republicans to head for cover, intimidated by the false charges of the left, and making "political calculations" rather than simply seeking the truth.

Investigative journalism, anyone ?

Lou Dobbs, the "Birther" Meme, and the Death of Investigative Journalism in the Left Wing Traditional Media

CNN President Jon Klein wants CNN program host Lou Dobbs to drop any further investigations of the facts surrounding President Obama's failure to produce an original hard copy version of his birth certificate. Mr. Klein seems intent on labeling his own employee with the false and misleading "birther" meme.

A "meme" is a term used to describe a phrase or word, much like a bumper sticker, which can be spread virally in the interconnected world of the modern media that instantly communicates a message. A phrase by itself is not particularly significant, but when it is spread virally it can be used to stop political discourse.

Inserting "memes" into the flow of news information so they will go viral is a common tactic used by left wing propagandists employed as "hosts" at cable networks such as MSNBC and CNN. The term "teabagger", for instance, is a pejorative "meme" inserted into the political discourse by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, and spread by colleagues David Shuster and Keith Olbermann, as well as CNN's Anderson Cooper.

The "birther" meme has been around since before the 2008 election, and is used to create the impression that anyone who asks any questions about President Obama's failure to produce a "Certificate of Live Birth" is a right wing nutcase. And while it's true that several gadflies who follow the issue, such as Phillip Berg and Dr. Orly Taitz, have little credibility due to their insistence on presenting "evidence" of a Kenyan birth that is thoroughly unreliable, it is a great disservice to attach the pejorative "birther" meme to legitimate journalistic investigations, such as those conducted by Mr. Dobbs.

Earlier this week Klein sent Dobbs an email which, according to Talking Points Memo said the following:

"It seems this story is dead" Klein wrote, "because anyone who still is not convinced doesn't really have a legitimate beef."

You can read the full Talking Points Memo story here.

Klein's argument seems to follows this logic:

1. State of Hawaii Department of Health spokesperson Janice Okubo confirmed in a June 6, 2009 interview with the Honolulu Star Bulletin reporter June Watanabe that all hard copy originals were transferred to a paperless electronic record system in 2001. Watanabe's June 6 story stated the following:

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.

You can read the full article here.

(Note: In his email to Dobbs, Klein states unequivocally that all hard copy birth certificates kept on file by the State of Hawaii were discarded in 2001 when the state went paperless. However, Watanabe's story does not address what became of these original records. While it is possible that the policy of the state of Hawaii was, in fact, to discard (and dispose of) the original hard copy birth certificates, Klein has no evidence to support that contention. While it is true that the old hard copies were no longer used as part of the official records of the state, Klein ASSUMES that the original documents were discarded. Perhaps so. But perhaps they were not discarded, and were instead stored in a physical warehouse.)

2. The hard copy document of Obama's "Certification of Live Birth" released by the campaign was an authentic document, verified by relevant state officials in an October 31, 2008 statement.
(Note that a "Certification of Live Birth" is quite different from a "Certificate of Live Birth". A "Certificate of Live Birth" is the original long form document signed by the attending physician at the time of birth. A "Certification of Birth" is a short form document produced, in theory based on the verification of the data provided in the original "Certificate of Live Birth".)

It's hard to say whether Klein's statement that the matter should therefore be closed is made out of bias, laziness, or a simple desire to obfuscate, but a myriad of investigative questions on the topic remain. If CNN were actually a legitimate journalistic organization, Mr. Klein would not be pressuring Mr. Dobbs to drop his investigation.

Here are several compelling reasons why Mr. Dobbs should continue his journalistic efforts on this topic:

On October 31, 2008, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the Secretary of Health for the State of Hawaii, issued the following statement:

Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.

You can see a copy of that original statement here

On November 3, 2008, I emailed a list of twelve clarifying questions about that statement to Janice Okubo, spokesperson for the State of Hawaii Department of Health, and to Dr. Fukino. Neither Ms. Okubo nor Dr. Fukino ever responded to those questions, nine of which I've included below:

1. Did you personally view an actual physical copy of the long form original birth certificate from August 4, 1961 signed by the attending physician at a Honolulu hospital?

2. What was the name of the hospital ?

3. What was the name of the attending physician ?

4. Besides holding an actual hard copy of the original August 4, 1961 birth certificate signed by the attending physician at a specific hospital in Honolulu, are there any other means by which, as you say "the state of Hawaii can have Barack Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with the state's policies and procedures regarding maintaining "original birth certificates on record"?

5. Was the original birth certificate on record submitted as part of the 1911 Hawaii Birth Certificate program, which allowed parents of children residing in Hawaii who were over one year of age to submit alternate birth documentation to the Department of Health and still be called "an original birth certificate."?

6. On what date was the original birth certificate on file registered ?

7. Did Senator Obama personally authorize Dr. Fukino and Dr. Onaka to view his "original birth certificate on record." ? If so, when and how ?

8. Did Senator Obama personally authorize Dr. Fukino and Dr. Onaka to issue the statement of October 31, 2008 ? If so, when and how ?

9. Have Dr. Fukino and Dr. Onaka had any communication with Senator Obama or did they meet with him in person on any occasion in the last 30 days or in the last year ? If so, were those communications or meetings negotiations related to statements to be made about his birth certificate ?

Based on Ms. Okubo's June 6, 2009 interview with the Honolulu Star Bulletin, it would appear that the answer to Question 1 above is that no, Dr. Fukino did not view an actual physical copy of President Obama's long form original "Certificate of Live Birth" at any time. To my knowledge, this June 6, 2009 interview of Ms. Okubo was the first time that any spokesperson from the State of Hawaii Department of Health officially acknowledged that it no longer maintains hard copy records of original "Certificates of Live Birth" as part of its officially authorized records documentation, verification, and creation process.

The remaining eight original questions remain unanswered. I would add the following eight new questions to the list of questions I would like to see answered:


1. For the Hawaii Secretary of Health, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, who issued the finely parsed official statement of October 31, 2008 which left the impression that she had seen the hard copy of the original birth certificate: Why did you not simply and honestly declare in your October 31, 2008 statement that you had not seen the hard copy of the original birth certificate, and that your statement verifying the authenticity of the "Certification of Live Birth" was based upon a forensic review of the process by which the data about President Obama's birth in the State of Hawaii's birth records was included in the data base, and that this process was consistent with the state's policies and procedures?

I note that almost all contemporaneous news reports used the language of Dr. Fukino's statement to report incorrectly that she had actually seen a physical copy of the original "Certificate of Live Birth" as issued by the hospital and signed by the attending physician. Dr. Fukino did nothing to correct this widely reported false assumption.

2. For President Obama: You have publicly stated that you were born at what was then called Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital, these days known officially as Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children, in Honolulu. Officials at that hospital state that they maintain original hard copy and microfiche copies of all birth records back to the 1950's. In order to comply with your promises of "transparency" will you now authorize the hospital to release their copy of your original birth certificate?

3. For the Hawaii Secretary of Health, Dr. Chiyome Fukino: Can you make public all electronic records you used and the documentation process you went through to confirm that President Obama's birth records were kept in the State of Hawaii birth records data base in accordance with the state's policies and procedures?

4. For the Hawaii Secretary of Health, Dr. Chiyome Fukino: Will you request that officials at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children now transfer a copy of their original records related to the birth of President Obama to you, and will you publicly release those records?

5. For officials at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children: Will you send a letter to President Obama, requesting him to authorize you to publicly release his original birth records, as it is a matter in the public interest?

6. For the Hawaii Secretary of Health, Dr. Chiyome Fukino: Can you confirm with one hundred percent certainty that the original birth certificate of Barack Obama upon which your electronic records were based was in fact a "Certificate of Live Birth" issued by Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children, and not a substitute certificate submitted within a year of the actual birth, as allowed for by Hawaiian Statues which were in place from 1959 to 1978?

7. For the Hawaii Secretary of Health, Dr. Chiyome Fukino: Were the original documents of birth records held by the Department of Health discarded in 2001 or were they placed in a warehouse? If they were placed in a warehouse, can they be found and produced? If they can be found and produced, will you produce and make public the original "Certificate of Live Birth" of President Barack Obama?

8. For Maya Soetero-Ng, half-sister of President Obama: Is it factually true that you were born in Indonesia in 1970, and were subsequently issued a "Certification of Live Birth" by the State of Hawaii's Department of Health, and that this document is of exactly the same type and form as the "Certification of Live Birth" that the same department has issued to your half-brother, President Obama?

I, for one, would like to know the answers to these questions, and hope that Mr. Dobbs will continue his investigations until we all receive these answers. Mr. Dobbs does not deserve to be falsely labeled as a "birther". A more accurate description of him would be simply this: he's an investigative journalist and a transparency champion.

Obama's Wednesday Press Conference: One of the Most Self Destructive in American Political History

It looks like President Obama need not fear Republican members of Congress causing his "Waterloo". He seems to have accomplished that objective all by himself with his comments Wednesday, which were delivered at what may have been one of the most self destructive press conferences in American political history.

First, he called a highly respected Cambridge police officer stupid. No, wait, Press Secretary Gibbs yesterday said he didn't call the police officer stupid, he merely said he "acted stupidly."

This after he acknowledged he didn't have all the facts on the incident, but he did know that Professor Gates was one of his friends.

Then, he impugned the integrity of every doctor in the country by implying they were so craven they would improperly require tonsillectomies because they were so greedy. The Ear Nose and Throat Surgeons of America politely told the President they were "disappointed" by these comments.

You can read all the details at the TCOT Report here.

Great job, Mr. President, taking away any momentum that may have been developing for your proposed Federal Health Care Takeover.

MemeSNBC : The Place Where the Left Wing Media Creates and Inserts False Assertions into the Political Discourse

If you would like to find out where the Left Wing Media creates and inserts its false assertions (also known as "memes") into the political discourse, please visit www.MemeSNBC.com

The Religion of the Left and its Creed

The Left can best be understood by conservatives more as a religion than a political movement.

After a lifetime of observing the thoughts and tactics of the Left, I offer this draft summary of "The Creed of the Left". I would appreciate comments on the usefulness of this creed from any and all political perspectives, and will modify it based on suggestions made by readers of this blog.

The Creed of the Left

We believe in the highest truth that man’s destiny is to create heaven on earth in the form of a socially just society, in which “all citizens are granted an unconditional claim upon that society collectively to be accorded the minimum resources necessary for a life of dignity and a genuine sense of belonging”, and where "the needs of the disadvantaged" are given preference over the needs of the advantaged. (Source of quote: Professor Bernard Chazelle)

We believe in the dualistic nature of man, in which all men and women choose to be one or the other-either forces for good or forces for evil.

We believe that a just society is to be formed in the political contest between the good and the evil, and that we who are good will ultimately prevail because we are morally and intellectually superior to the evil.

We believe that the good, because we are good, have a responsibility to use any means necessary to destroy the evil, because a just soiciety can not be created until the evil are either destroyed or converted to the good.

We believe in the sacredness of our planet, Mother Earth, which the evil will attempt to harm by their every action, and that the good must prevent this harm through any means necessary. We believe that global warming is caused by man’s activity that produces too much carbon dioxide, and that any scientific evidence that shows a contrary position must be ignored and ridiculed.

We believe in the perfectability of man through the use of centralized government, which knows best how to accomplish this through the collective political process rather than through the exercise of individual rights .

We believe it is the duty of the good to contribute to the creation of the just society on earth, that it is the inevitable march of history, and that the use of any means to accomplish this end is morally justified.

We believe that heaven is not exclusively a spiritual state to be experienced by the individual after death, but is also the just society to be experienced by those living here on earth in the future, and that by our actions today on earth, we preserve our own claim for posterity to a position of honor in that just society.

We believe that there is no unique excellence within the Constitution and Government of the United States of America, and that the march towards the just society is led by international organizations such as the United Nations.

An Open Letter to Major Stefan Cook: Follow Your Lawful Orders

Dear Major Cook:

I read with great interest the news of your recent lawsuit, in which you argue that as a reservist in the United States Army you are not obligated to follow the lawful orders issued to you by your military commanders to be deployed to Afghanistan.

The news article on this topic is here.

Your attorney argues that since President Obama has not proven he is a natural born citizen he is not authorized to serve as President, and therefore none of his commands as Commander-in-Chief are legitimate.

Your attorney is completely wrong in this assertion, and is putting you in serious jeapordy. For the sake of the country, your personal future, and your family, please withdraw your suit and accept your legitimate orders to deploy.

While I agree that President Obama has not met the burden of proof necessary to prove that he is a natural born citizen, there are two methods to properly make this challenge. Disobedience of a lawful order is not one of those methods.

The first method for such a challenge was available to Congress when it convened in January, 2009 to count the electoral votes cast in the 2008 Presidential Election. Federal law clearly outlines a method for legitimate challenge to the President's eligibility to serve that could have been exercised at that time. Objections to the legitimacy of any electoral vote count from any state could have been voted on by the full joint session of Congress had at any time a single member of the House and a single Senator risen together to request such a vote.

As not a single Congressman or Senator raised such an objection at that time, no vote was taken, and upon the President's swearing in at the Inauguration, every action he took subsequently under the legitimate authority of the Constitution was valid.

This means, Major, that your orders are legitimate.

The second method of challenge is to go through the Federal Court, not for the purpose of challenging the legitimacy of a single act, but rather to challenge that the burden of proof to establish natural born status has not been met by the President.

Several such cases are lumbering through the courts now. While none of them have outstanding prospects for success, they are legitimately brought for consideration. Your case, in contrast, is not legitimately brought, and has no chance for success.

My suggestion to you is as follows: Get a new attorney, drop your case, and accept your orders.

Nine Ways Conservative Radicals Can Take Action Today to Restore our Republic

The average conservative citizen has a number of ways to help restore our republic. My suggestion: assess your strengths and weaknesses, determine where you can make the biggest contribution, and focus on a project in one of these nine areas.

Once you've picked a project, follow through. Stick with it until it achieves its objectives.

1. Melt the Phones

(a)Call your United States Senators to tell them you oppose the socialist "Cap and Tax" Legislation the House of Representatives barely passed.

Here's a particularly creative variant on the "melt the phones concept", courtesy of Phil Valentine: www.GiveTheSenateSomeBalls.com.

(b) Call your Congressman and Senators to tell them you oppose the Obama-Pelosi-Reid government takeover of our health care system.

2. Evangelize to the Under 30 Generation

(a) Join the Mustard Seed Project
(b) Become certified as a Conservative Radical Evangelist and instructor.

3. Organize Locally (City and County Level) to Stop Higher Taxes

(a) Example: Tucson, Arizona

4. Restore the Constitution

(a) Become active in The Bill of Federalism Project

5. Take Back Congress for Fiscal Conservatism in 2010

(a) Volunteer to work for a local fiscal conservative in the Republican and/or Democrat Primary in your district

(b) Join the organization www.fixcongress.org.

6. Boycott Advertisers Who Support Socialist-Statism and Conservative Bashing

(a) Join the www.FireDavidLetterman.com Project.

(b) Help develop and implement the plan to www.FightLeftWingMedia.com

7. Take Over Your Political Party Power Structure

(a) The Republican National Committee
(b) The Democrat National Committee

You can take the first step by signing up at www.ThePrecinctProject.com


8. Hold them to their own standards

(a) Blog and tweet about Obama Administration hypocrisy

9. Become a part time Conservative Investigative Journalist

(a) Sign up at The TCOT Report