The posts I made could hardly have been noise, as they seemingly were not even heard by the persons being replied to. Or not even seen anyway. ZEB certainly showed no signs of being able to hear or see what I wrote. Or at any rate any sign of being able to come up with a reply that he could find any value in presenting.
Do you think an argument that what I stated, or what you stated, or what anyone in this thread pointing out a problem was stating was “just noise” makes sense?
If that is his position, it’s not different than the person sticking his fingers in his ears and singing “La, la, la” to try to pretend that what is being said isn’t being heard or has no substance, rather than actually pointing out an error or problem with it, or alternate explantion that makes sense.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
The media would also look even more in the tank for having failed to demand to know, as they would have for practically anyone else and certainly a Republican candidate, why he had sealed so many of his past records and what was he hiding?
It was their job to press for information on the extremely unusual, in fact unprecedented, matter of a Presidential candidate getting court orders to seal so much of his records. The standard and expected thing for a Presidential candidate is to throw everything open, including very private things such as medical records. It is the custom.
And particularly that it was done right after he decided to run for President. Ordinarily, and properly, a candidate should have been grilled over that.
The media was in the tank and did not.
Now, if the matter can just be ridden out and never investigated, by tactics such as sneeringly calling anyone saying the documents should be presented “birthers” and “conspiracy theorists,” then the media’s extreme bias and in-the-tank so-called journalism would, in that matter anyway, not be so exposed.
So of course the media doesn’t want to touch this. They were complicit in the protect-and-promote-Obama campaign coverage, as opposed to the informational journalism they should have been doing.[/quote]
Even if you could produce proof that Obama was not born here, no one would believe it.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
The posts I made could hardly have been noise, as they seemingly were not even heard by the persons being replied to. Or not even seen anyway.
Do you think an argument that what I stated, or what you stated, or what anyone in this thread pointing out a problem was stating was “just noise” makes sense?[/quote]
I’m not saying your questions don’t deserve some sort of answer. I’m just saying that that is irrelevant to ZEB’s point.
I get the skepticism of the government and people in power, I really do, but the evidence here is all on one side. This birther stuff is really driven by racism, xenophobia, and maybe just plain hate of BHO. This goes well beyond reasonable skepticism of government or politicians, it’s highly irrational conspiracy theory stuff, and I think the birth announcements nail it even if everything else does not. It’s beyond loony to believe that the Dunhams, in anticipation of a future political career for their grandson, placed these ads in the newspaper to cover up the real location of his birth in Kenya, or on the Moon, or in Atlantis or wherever the hell these people think he was born.
[/quote]
[quote]tedro wrote:
This is all hearsay. Why not simply give a certified copy of the birth certificate to an independent investigator, or even congress?
[/quote]
I’m not privy to Obama’s reasoning on this topic. I’d say it’s probably because: 1. he’s POTUS and has more important things to do coupled with 2. conspiracy theorists will believe what they want to believe regardless of the evidence. President Bush didn’t waste his time trying to prove 9/11 wasn’t an inside job.
[quote]tedro wrote:
Factcheck cannot be considered a reliable source. Factcheck is funded by the Annenberg Foundation. Obama served as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995-1999. There is a clear bias here.
[/quote]
That connection hardly constitutes a biased source, but even granting that such a connection proves irredeemable bias, factcheck was hardly the only source to provide the evidence listed, and intimations of bias are hardly proof of anything.
[quote]tedro wrote:
3) Some believe this is a forgery (I don’t). It has never been released to anyone else.
[/quote]
Hawaii state officials saw it. But leaving that alone for a second, if you don’t believe it’s a forgery, what do you believe? What would releasing the short form to other people prove?
[quote]tedro wrote:
4) Hawaiian statue at the time allows for the registration of foreign born children to residents of the state, in which case they would issue a short-form birth certificate like Obamas instead of the long-form that would detail the hospital in which he was born and the attending physician.
[/quote]
OK.
[quote]tedro wrote:
5) Ann Dunham may have registered Obama’s birth the same way a home birth would have been registered at the time. She simply filled out a form and signed an affidavit. She possibly would have had her mother sign it as well as a witness. This is why he will not release his birth certificate, as the long-form, if even available, would have documented this and there is no one to corroborate his birth. Claiming a home-birth would have opened up this can of worms a long time ago, so he instead claimed to have been born in a hawaiian hospital and showed a short-form certificate that would not dispute this. I find this the most likely explanation for the birth certificate factcheck claims to have seen.
[/quote]
OK
[quote]tedro wrote:
6) The birth announcements are also hearsay and a moot point anyways. That information came straight from the DOH. So long as the birth was registered in Hawaii, which I’m sure it was albeit fraudulently, the birth announcements would appear in the paper.
[/quote]
So to make sure I’m following: BHO was born somewhere in Kenya, was flown shortly thereafter to Hawaii, where his birth was registered–due to the fact that at the time foreigners could register their births as being in Hawaii even if they were born elsewhere. So he’s not an American citizen but a citizen of Kenya? And he has no long form birth certificate at all? And Stanley Dunham’s motivation for this was, what?
Valiance, no you are not following, and I notice you still are pretending to be hard of hearing regarding the questions I directly asked of you last page (immediately after your post) and which repeatedly I’ve pointed out rather sharply that people like you just consistently won’t answer.
It also doesn’t help to play dumb, pretending that you just can’t imagine why an American citizen, if her child were born outside the US and if she had not met the recent residency requirements that ordinarily would grant her child citizenship if born outside the US, would want to try to get that citizenship for him if she could, by means of filing an affidavit and having birth announcements called in to the papers if that would do it.
People go to a lot more trouble than that to have their children be counted as US citizens.
So your pretending that it just doesn’t make sense that she would so such a thing, if that were the case, is just foolish.
Furthermore, I really find it hard to believe that you don’t actually grasp that the certain problem here is that a great deal of trouble was gone to by Obama to hide many things related to his birth and citizenship, and therefore it is absolutely reasonable to demand why? What is being hidden? He wasn’t running for garbage collector: it is the view of most Americans that Presidential candidates should be open about their pasts, not secretive, particularly about key issues. Do you defend his sealing all these relevant records? Wouldn’t the press ordinarily – indeed isn’t it their job – ordinarily on learning a candidate had sealed much of his past, demand to know why and demand to know what he was hiding?
What good reason do you think he has for sealing his long form birth certificate, his kindergarten school records, his college records, his passport records, etc? Do you have a better explanation of why? If not, why do you ridicule the explanation that he hid these things on running for President because there’s something in them he feared that if the American people knew it, they might not elect him or he might not even be eligible?
What is wrong with that explanation? Can you explain why it makes no sense, if it doesn’t, or how it isn’t the best (most explanatory and reasonably possible) explanation offered to date?
Please come up with something cogent, not something foolish like pretending you can’t imagine why his mother would, if he weren’t entitled to American citizenship, try to get him documented by means of affidavit. It just makes you look bad pretending you can’t figure things like that out.
So, want to take a crack at the questions I directly asked of you last page that you ducked?
[quote]valiance. wrote:
I’m not privy to Obama’s reasoning on this topic. I’d say it’s probably because: 1. he’s POTUS and has more important things to do coupled with 2. conspiracy theorists will believe what they want to believe regardless of the evidence. President Bush didn’t waste his time trying to prove 9/11 wasn’t an inside job.
[/quote]
Are you being this dense intentionally? Have you completely missed the point. If it was not privy to spend time on the issue, then why spend so much time and money sealing the records? The only reason Obama is now being asked to spend time releasing the records is because he himself had them sealed in the first place. The first post in this thread was about an act he signed ensuring that the release of any records had to go through him. Your conclusions here are illogical.
Politifact references factcheck. Snopes introduces no new evidence that what we’ve already discussed.
Hawaiian officials did not see it. They can’t. It has been sealed. (Haven’t we gone over this already?) They verified that they have a birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies, as they would even if Dunham registered the birth herself by signing an affidavit. The fact that it is on record has not been disputed here nor does it prove anything. What does remain unknown is whether a long-form certificate ever would have been issued in this case, or if statute only allows for a short-form certificate in these sorts of cases.
[quote]
So to make sure I’m following: BHO was born somewhere in Kenya, was flown shortly thereafter to Hawaii, where his birth was registered–due to the fact that at the time foreigners could register their births as being in Hawaii even if they were born elsewhere. So he’s not an American citizen but a citizen of Kenya? And he has no long form birth certificate at all? And Stanley Dunham’s motivation for this was, what?[/quote]
See above for your question about the long form. Bill addressed the rest of this quote perfectly well.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Ah, perhaps we have a taker here to provide a logical reason, besides what I have offered, for his having his childhood school records, his college records, and his passport records sealed?
Random firing of neurons, do you think? (That is to say, no explicable cause.)
Or a possible cause that makes some sense, that you will enlighten us of?[/quote]
Because, if he opens his school records, people will look at them and claim they are forged or dodgy or whatever. The conspiracy theory nuts have made up their mind already, they will not change it regardless of what information is put in front of them. This has been clearly shown by the updates in the Moon landing bollocks. Foil hat brigade says ‘we don’t believe it happened, show us a picture of the landing site.’ NASA obliges showing pictures of the landing sites from the LRO, foil hat brigade says ‘ah but those photos are from NASA, we don’t trust them, we want independent photos.’
Obama can’t win because he is dealing with people who are irrational and illogical. It makes more sense to not have the argument than to try and argue with someone who is illogical and irrational. The tin foil hat brigade are a fringe who has no real impact on the real world. Better to ignore them and concentrate on important things and voters who can actually make a difference.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
Ah, perhaps we have a taker here to provide a logical reason, besides what I have offered, for his having his childhood school records, his college records, and his passport records sealed?
Random firing of neurons, do you think? (That is to say, no explicable cause.)
Or a possible cause that makes some sense, that you will enlighten us of?
Because, if he opens his school records, people will look at them and claim they are forged or dodgy or whatever. The conspiracy theory nuts have made up their mind already, they will not change it regardless of what information is put in front of them. This has been clearly shown by the updates in the Moon landing bollocks. Foil hat brigade says ‘we don’t believe it happened, show us a picture of the landing site.’ NASA obliges showing pictures of the landing sites from the LRO, foil hat brigade says ‘ah but those photos are from NASA, we don’t trust them, we want independent photos.’
Obama can’t win because he is dealing with people who are irrational and illogical. It makes more sense to not have the argument than to try and argue with someone who is illogical and irrational. The tin foil hat brigade are a fringe who has no real impact on the real world. Better to ignore them and concentrate on important things and voters who can actually make a difference.[/quote]
You’re still refusing to answer why they were sealed in the first place. In fact, the citizenship issue never gained any traction until it was discovered that all of these records were sealed. It was actually this lack of transparency that caused people to start digging and asking questions about his eligibility. So the question remains, why hide all of these records?
Cockney Blue deserves credit for at least trying to come up with an explanation, though his explanation is for why not now unseal the records (which wasn’t asked) as opposed to why seal them in the first place when deciding to run for President. When no other Presidential candidate has ever done such a thing, but rather instead has thrown everything open.
It doesn’t make sense that as a pre-emptive act, a person would seal all these records in fear that if they were available directly from the official sources, people would claim they were forgeries.
So that is not an explanation for why he sealed them on deciding to run for President, or at least not one that makes sense.
Imagine if Bush did something like Obama has done. Remember how swarms of investigators were sent to Alaska, to see if Sarah had any unpaid parking tickets? Now Obama seals up everything and he has the only key.
And not a peep from the mainstream media.
I love a good conspiracy theory but this is just too damn ‘delicious’.
[quote]tedro wrote:
valiance. wrote:
I’m not privy to Obama’s reasoning on this topic. I’d say it’s probably because: 1. he’s POTUS and has more important things to do coupled with 2. conspiracy theorists will believe what they want to believe regardless of the evidence. President Bush didn’t waste his time trying to prove 9/11 wasn’t an inside job.
Are you being this dense intentionally? Have you completely missed the point. If it was not privy to spend time on the issue, then why spend so much time and money sealing the records? The only reason Obama is now being asked to spend time releasing the records is because he himself had them sealed in the first place. The first post in this thread was about an act he signed ensuring that the release of any records had to go through him. Your conclusions here are illogical.
[/quote]
Sealing the records takes very little time compared to constantly fighting the same smears over and over again. Nothing will satisfy some people. See Cockney Blue’s post. And he’s POTUS now, he has more important things to do now, when he was running he didn’t, at that point his whole job was to do stuff like that.
[quote]tedro wrote:
Factcheck cannot be considered a reliable source. Factcheck is funded by the Annenberg Foundation. Obama served as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995-1999. There is a clear bias here.
That connection hardly constitutes a biased source, but even granting that such a connection proves irredeemable bias, factcheck was hardly the only source to provide the evidence listed, and intimations of bias are hardly proof of anything.
Politifact references factcheck. Snopes introduces no new evidence that what we’ve already discussed.
[/quote]
Snopes introduces all this old information without referencing factcheck thereby validating everything there.
politifact references factcheck but thats hardly their only source of information and as I said earlier these intimations of bias are really meaningless
[quote]tedro wrote:
valiance. wrote:
Hawaii state officials saw it. But leaving that alone for a second, if you don’t believe it’s a forgery, what do you believe? What would releasing the short form to other people prove?
Hawaiian officials did not see it. They can’t. It has been sealed. (Haven’t we gone over this already?) They verified that they have a birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies, as they would even if Dunham registered the birth herself by signing an affidavit. The fact that it is on record has not been disputed here nor does it prove anything. What does remain unknown is whether a long-form certificate ever would have been issued in this case, or if statute only allows for a short-form certificate in these sorts of cases.
[/quote]
Sorry they have verified that the original birth certificate exists.
note that they didn’t get this information from factcheck
Additionally the claim by Hawaiian govt officials seems to be that there is no long form…
[quote]tedro wrote:
valiance. wrote:
So to make sure I’m following: BHO was born somewhere in Kenya, was flown shortly thereafter to Hawaii, where his birth was registered–due to the fact that at the time foreigners could register their births as being in Hawaii even if they were born elsewhere. So he’s not an American citizen but a citizen of Kenya? And he has no long form birth certificate at all? And Stanley Dunham’s motivation for this was, what?
See above for your question about the long form. Bill addressed the rest of this quote perfectly well.[/quote]
I don’t follow how my above explanation doesn’t match what you’re suggesting might have been the case. If what you’re saying is true it’s at least possible. And what officials are saying directly conflicts what you’ve suggested.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Valiance, no you are not following, and I notice you still are pretending to be hard of hearing regarding the questions I directly asked of you last page (immediately after your post) and which repeatedly I’ve pointed out rather sharply that people like you just consistently won’t answer.
It also doesn’t help to play dumb, pretending that you just can’t imagine why an American citizen, if her child were born outside the US and if she had not met the recent residency requirements that ordinarily would grant her child citizenship if born outside the US, would want to try to get that citizenship for him if she could, by means of filing an affidavit and having birth announcements called in to the papers if that would do it.
People go to a lot more trouble than that to have their children be counted as US citizens.
So your pretending that it just doesn’t make sense that she would so such a thing, if that were the case, is just foolish.
[/quote]
I can buy this logic re: the effort required to make one’s child an American citizen, but if she was so hellbent on having her child be a US citizen, why didn’t she just… have him in the US? It seems far easier (for a US citizen) than having the child abroad and falsifying everything afterwards.
I think its more parsimonious to accept the official explanation rather than posit the existence of a theoretical foreign birth for BHO for which we have no evidence. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that suggests its possible he might have been born abroad, but there’s just 0 proof.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Furthermore, I really find it hard to believe that you don’t actually grasp that the certain problem here is that a great deal of trouble was gone to by Obama to hide many things related to his birth and citizenship, and therefore it is absolutely reasonable to demand why? What is being hidden? He wasn’t running for garbage collector: it is the view of most Americans that Presidential candidates should be open about their pasts, not secretive, particularly about key issues. Do you defend his sealing all these relevant records? Wouldn’t the press ordinarily – indeed isn’t it their job – ordinarily on learning a candidate had sealed much of his past, demand to know why and demand to know what he was hiding?
What good reason do you think he has for sealing his long form birth certificate, his kindergarten school records, his college records, his passport records, etc? Do you have a better explanation of why? If not, why do you ridicule the explanation that he hid these things on running for President because there’s something in them he feared that if the American people knew it, they might not elect him or he might not even be eligible?
What is wrong with that explanation? Can you explain why it makes no sense, if it doesn’t, or how it isn’t the best (most explanatory and reasonably possible) explanation offered to date?
Please come up with something cogent, not something foolish like pretending you can’t imagine why his mother would, if he weren’t entitled to American citizenship, try to get him documented by means of affidavit. It just makes you look bad pretending you can’t figure things like that out.
So, want to take a crack at the questions I directly asked of you last page that you ducked?[/quote]
It’s certainly possible that he sealed those records for the reasons you stated, and I can’t defend his secrecy on these issues. What doesn’t make sense to me is jumping from the possibility I’ve admitted exists to imagining BHO is actually foreign born. There’s no evidence for it, and it’s simply not at all parsimonious.
In fact, if what Hawaiian officials are saying is true, there is no long form birth certificate and we already 100% know for sure that BHO was NOT foreign born, making the whole birth issue moot. (Of course this doesn’t excuse the sealing of all his other school/travel records, it just indicates the reason for their sealing wasn’t the need to cover up a foreign birth).
How you assert you know for sure he was not foreign-born, I can’t imagine. Unless you deny the repeated reports that at the time, the short-form certificate that Obama provides could be obtained merely by affidavit.
I certainly don’t know that he was foreign-born and don’t claim to know.
What I do know is he’s hiding information relevant to it. If as you say above – though I’m not sure you didn’t have a typo – there is no long-form birth certificate, he (whether directly or via his campaign) hasn’t been truthful about that fact.
I also know he’s hidden all kinds of other relevant information.
It seems to me the most sensible explanation – certainly no more innocent one that even makes sense has been provided yet – for why he has sealed his college and passport records is that even as an adult he maintained his Indonesian citizenship, and there’s no evidence he ever renounced it.
Though the passport records might instead be sealed for showing a non-US place of birth. However that wouldn’t be a more innocent explanation.
If a man wants to run for President but has the little odd fact that he’s also an Indonesian citizen, which the voters might not like and might be deemed to make him ineligible to run for office, if he’s the dishonest sort, then wouldn’t he seal every single thing that could demonstrate his having claimed and/or utilized that other citizenship? (And/or foreign place of birth.)
It doesn’t prove it, but it is the best explanation available – and apparently the only explanation available that makes sense – and Obama ought not to be hiding the facts on it.
Oh, and on the point you make regarding why his mother wouldn’t make sure she was back in the US at the time: sometimes things don’t go according to plan. So the argument you make there hardly demonstrates that she was here.
Perhaps she even thought ahead and knew what she would do if she wasn’t back in time, and therefore didn’t worry so much about having to be here in advance of the expected date just to be certain.
It is not as if we know Obama’s date of conception so as to be able to know if he didn’t arrive a bit early or instead was on time.
Reread my posts. Nothing I have stated contradicts what the officials have said, other than this new idea that long forms are no longer available. The fact in regards to this is that most states simply produce the short-form because it is easier, cheaper, and typically provides all the evidence necessary to show citizenship and identification.
To suggest that the original long-form and the information contained in it is no longer available makes no sense whatsoever, and unless this is true for everyone born in Hawaii, it would actually contradict the director of the DOH’s statements on having the certificate on record in accordance with state policies.
This guy didn’t have any problem getting a copy of his long-form in 1998:
Take a close look at this. Look at box 6c that allows for place of birth to be listed as a street residence. I have been trying to find specifically what is required to obtain a birth certificate in Hawaii, but I haven’t yet found out for sure.
What I have found is that in other states the mother simply fills out the certificate of live birth linked to above and signs the bottom. Some require a witness, some don’t. I’m guessing Hawaii does seeing as box 19a is the signature of the attendant, and a box is their to check the profession of the attendant MD, DO, midwife, or other in this case.
Furthermore, no verification of the age of the child is required, meaning Obama could have possibly been born in July or even June of '61 and Dunham just didn’t get back to Hawaii until the first week of August. Some states (Arizona for sure) will even let the mother send in the certificate of live birth form by mail, making this an even greater possibility.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
How you assert you know for sure he was not foreign-born, I can’t imagine. [/quote]
He has a Hawaiian birth certificate. I wonder how exactly can that be confusing to you?
As far as Obama sealing his records, who knows why he did it. Maybe because he can? President George W. Bush had the presidential records of President George H.W. Bush sealed… why’d he do that? Who knows?
I’m really surprised to be reading conspiracy type stuff coming from you, Bill Roberts. I expected a more rational thought process. You’re starting with a final premise (Obama has a past history that will damage his presidency - I think that’s what you’re implying) and now you’re looking for evidence that will support your final thesis…
Not very scientific approach, to say the least. In fact, it’s pretty kooky. It reflects poorly on you, I am sorry to say.
Lets put it this way… every candidate does opposition research. McCain’s lawyers looked at the birth certificate issue (and lets face it, the Clintons did as well) and there was nothing wrong.
BTW, the lawyers who are pushing this birth certificate nonsense are a bunch of clowns… one has a mail-order degree, one of them has been disbarred in several states, and the third one has been sued for legal malpractice (and lost).
These are the legal experts you’re throwing your hopes onto. Nobody serious believes any of this junk.
By the way, the first bill Obama signed (that’s what this thread is supposed to be about, right?) was the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. As I understand it, it helps reinforce existing laws that women can’t be discriminated against when it comes to salary, solely on the basis of their sex.
Republicans didn’t seem to care much for this issue - the GOP defeated the bill previously when they held the majority (which is probably one reason that women seem to tend to vote for Democrats).
[quote]K2000 wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
How you assert you know for sure he was not foreign-born, I can’t imagine.
He has a Hawaiian birth certificate. I wonder how exactly can that be confusing to you?[/quote]
You are either playing dumb or you are not remotely up on this matter.
There we go! Finally! An intelligent alternate explanation that makes sense!
On deciding to run for President, Obama decided to go the very considerable legal troubles and expenses required to seal his kindergarten, college, and passport records – among others – because he could!
No other reason: it just dawned on him that he could do it, so that was more than enough reason to go have attorneys do this. It wasn’t that there was anything he thought needed to be hidden from the American people if he wanted to be elected: it was just that he realized he could do it, so he did.
Uh, wait a sec… I already offered the “random firing of neurons” as the only other alternate explanation that made sense. Really what you have posted is just a version of that. So, I’m sorry, but actually no, you get no cookies for this one.
