Certifigate: Obama Birth Cert Not Released; Why This Changes the Game
On the heels of a purported Kenyan Birth Registration said by Kenyan officials as likely not being authentic, and with Dr. Orly Taitz’ motion for a Letter Rogatory having been stricken by Judge Nakazato on account of being improperly filed (with all due respect, how hard is it to properly file paperwork?), Newsmax.com is reporting the following:
Contrary to widespread media reports, Hawaiian health officials have not publicly released President Obama’s original, “long-form” birth certificate, state officials confirm to Newsmax.
Many media reports have insisted the president’s actual birth certificate is available on the Internet for anyone to download. It is not.
Barack Obama’s “certification of live birth,” was issued by the state of Hawaii and was posted first on the Obama presidential campaign Web site.
Such a certification sometimes is called the “short form” — some agencies accept it as an equivalent of a birth certificate, some do not.
The document is essentially a summary of the actual long form birth certificate. The certification does not list the attending physician, the address or hospital where the delivery took place, or the parents’ occupation. Typically, this information is included on the birth certificate.
Newsmax asked Janice S. Okubo, communications director for Hawaii’s State Health Department, whether the department had released any of the president’s vital records to anyone other than the president or a direct relative. Doing so would constitute a violation of HRS 338, Section 18, the Hawaii law intended to protect personal information and prevent identity theft.
Okubo’s response: “The Hawaii State Department of Health complies with state laws” — meaning no public release of the document has occurred.
Throughout the so-called “birther” controversy — birthers suspect Obama was not born in the United States and therefore is not constitutionally eligible to serve as president — anchors and reporters have assumed wrongly that Obama’s “certification of live birth” contains the same information as an original, long-form birth certificate:
- MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews interviewed Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., on July 21, lambasting him for co-sponsoring a House bill that would require presidential candidates to submit documents to establish their constitutional eligibility to serve as president.”What you’re doing is appeasing the nut cases,” Matthews said. “As you just pointed out, this [bill] won’t prove or disprove whether Barack Obama is a citizen. By the way, let me show you his birth certificate” — Matthews held up a document — “That’s the way to deal with this: Mail a copy of this certificate to the wacko wing of your party, so they see it and say, ‘I agree with this. It’s over.’”Matthews held up Obama’s certification of live birth — not his birth certificate.
- Talk host Rachel Maddow stated on June 11: “This baseless, mouth-breathing, whack-job theory became such an issue during the presidential campaign that Mister Obama did actually release a certificate of his birth from Hawaii, showing that he was born in Honolulu in 1961. And yet, the ‘birther’ movement persists.”What the Obama campaign released was the certification-of-live-birth summary.
- In response to a question from correspondent Les Kinsolving on why the president doesn’t simply release his long-form birth certificate, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs replied incredulously: “You’re looking for the president’s birth certificate? It’s on the Internet.”
- CNN anchor Rick Sanchez recently held up a document for cameras to zoom in on. “This is a reprint of his birth certificate . . . or as it says here, certificate of birth.” The document presented by Sanchez was clearly marked “certification of live birth.”
The certification of live birth qualifies an individual to receive a passport, a driver’s license, or otherwise establish residency for official purposes, Hawaii says.
When the birth-certificate issue emerged just before the November election, Hawaii Health Department Director Chiyome Fukino released a statement saying that she had “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.”
Dr. Fukino added in an apparent effort to head off conspiracy theorists: “No state official . . . has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii.”
When the blogosphere tempest flared up again recently, Fukino issued another, slightly different statement, saying she has “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.”
Several courts have sided with the Hawaii Health Department’s position that birth records must be protected as private. In December, the U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment to hear a case that challenged Obama’s constitutional eligibility to be president.
Hawaii health officials have stated in the past that they maintain Obama’s original birth certificate and have it in their possession. The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin carried the announcement of Obama’s birth about nine days after it occurred, although that has not convinced the birthers.
Why the ongoing interest in the long-form, original birth certificate, even among conservatives who don’t dispute that Obama was born in the state of Hawaii?
Obama’s critics complain the birth certificate echoes a pattern of promising transparency on the one hand while refusing to release key documents on the other, including detailed personal health records, Obama’s correspondence while an Illinois senator, his attorney client list or billing records, or his college transcripts.
They also point out that Obama is the only modern president whose precise place of birth remains undetermined. Honolulu’s Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital has been widely cited as his birthplace, but another Honolulu location has been mentioned as well.
The hospital has declined to address whether Obama was born there. Presidential birthplaces typically receive recognition and commemoration.
Pamela Geller of her AtlasShrugs.com blog expressed her sentiments via her new home at Newsmax.com regarding the story of the fraudulent certification of live birth that she first broke.
In light of the above, I have recently sent FactCheck.org correspondence regarding the certification of live birth that they presumably still possess (as I promised) to see if there have been, in fact, independent reporters, forensic document examiners and the like who have physically analyzed the document as well as any contact info for those individuals that is available. I expect to report on that development soon.
With the above, we now move into the reality that Mr. Obama has released absolutely zero original evidence that substantiates his eligibility regarding the office of the presidency. As the above article by Newsmax points out, while the alleged HI COLB contains information that is perfectly suitable for State Department purposes of getting a passport or driver’s license, it does not show enough information to absolutely confirm or deny presidential eligibility. In fact, the State Department has no law by which to determine presidential eligibility, nor does it have the authority to make such a determination.
The game has now changed.
Update: How has the game changed? Allow me to explain.
There are two things we know for sure regarding Mr. Obama’s birth documentation:
- The long-form birth certificate has not been released;
- The short-form “certification of live birth” provides, in theory, some of the information (but not all) that would otherwise be found on a potential long-form birth certificate
Now, what do I mean by, “in theory?” Simply put: as with the case of China-born Sun Yat-sen, since all that the HI Department of Health has ever said is that the documentation they have on file says Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, it’s still very possible that Mr. Obama was not born in Hawaii.
However, before getting lost in the geographical location argument, think about this: Since there currently is no law that legally enforces the presidential eligibility clause in the Constitution, and since there is subsequently no law that dictates the degree to which any available information is “enough” to substantiate eligibility, we are practically left nowhere.
Nowhere? How is that? The opposition to questioning eligibility insists that the certification of live birth (not a birth certificate) has “enough” info to determine eligibility, in that Dr. Fukino claimed that Mr. Obama is a natural-born citizen, so why question a public official? Meanwhile, individuals such as myself say that the COLB is not complete enough to make such a determination and that Dr. Fukino has only ever claimed to be making such determinations based on the documentation that the State has on file (which could be very similar to what Mr. Yat-sen submitted to the Territory so many years ago).
Therefore, the argument has systematically turned into a “they-said, they-said”-type of argument; since there is no definitive guiding law for determining eligibility, it is therefore at this time solely up to the court of public opinion to continue churning the argument with, apparently, no end in sight, save a legitimate revelation of documentation.
Update: A concerned citizen relayed an article from the Examiner.com entitled, “Attempt to debunk Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate debunked.”
Newsmax.com has an interesting article talking about the birthplaces of, so far, 43 presidential birth places, but none yet commemorating Mr. Obama:
1. George Washington — Address: George Washington Birthplace National Monument; Rural Route 1; Box 717; Washington’s Birthplace, Va. 22443
2. John Adams — Address: 133 Franklin St.; Quincy, Mass. 02669
3.Thomas Jefferson — Address: U.S. 250; 3 miles east of Charlottesville, Va.
4. James Madison — Address: Monroe Hall; Virginia SR 205; Westmoreland County near Colonial Beach, Va. 22443
5.James Monroe — Address: Monroe Hall; Virginia SR 205; Westmoreland County near Colonial Beach, Va. 22443
6.John Quincy Adams — Address: 141 Franklin St.; Quincy, Mass. 02169
7.Andrew Jackson — Address: 14 miles south of Rock Hill on South Carolina State Route 5. The Park is on Route 1. Address:196 Andrew Jackson Park Road; Lancaster, S.C. 29720
8.Martin Van Buren — Address: 46 Hudson St.; Kinderhook, New York 12106
9.William Henry Harrison — Address: 12602 Harrison Landing Road; Charles City, Va. 23030
10. John Tyler — Address: John Tyler Memorial Highway; Charles City, Va. 23030
11. James Polk — Address: Box 475; Pineville, N.C. 28134
12. Zachary Taylor — Address: Highway 33; 5 miles west of Gordonsville, Va., and just over 20 miles from Charlottesville, Va.
13. Millard Fillmore — Address: Millard Fillmore Birthplace; Locke, N.Y. 13092
14. Franklin Pierce — Address: The Pierce Homestead; Routes 9 and 31; Hillsboro, N.H. 03244
15. James Buchanan — Address: Buchanan Historic Site; Mercersburg, Pa. 17236
16. Abraham Lincoln — Address: Sinking Spring Farm; 2995 Lincoln Farm Road; Hodgenville, Ky. 42748
17. Andrew Johnson — Address: Mordecai Historic Park; Wake Forest Road; Raleigh, N.C. 27601
18. Ulysses Grant — Address: Grant’s Birthplace; Routes 52E and 322; Point Pleasant, Ohio 45143
19. Rutherford Hayes — Address: Rutherford B. Hayes Birthplace; East William Street; Delaware, Ohio 43015
20. James Garfield — Address: James A. Garfield Birthplace; 4350 S.O.M Center Road; Moreland Hills (now Chagrin Falls); Cuyahoga County, Ohio 44022
21. Chester Arthur — Address: Chester A. Arthur State Historic Site; Route 36; Fairfield, Vt. 05455
22. Grover Cleveland — Address: Grover Cleveland Birthplace State Historic Site; 207 Bloomfield Avenue; Caldwell, N.J. 07006
23. Benjamin Harrison — Address: Benjamin Harrison Birthplace; William Henry Harrison Home; Symmes and Washington Avenues; North Bend, Ohio 45052
24. Grover Cleveland — Address: Grover Cleveland Birthplace State Historic Site; 207 Bloomfield Avenue; Caldwell, N.J. 07006
25. William McKinley — Address: William McKinley Birthplace; 36 S. Main St.; Niles, Ohio 44446
26. Theodore Roosevelt — Address: Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site; 28 East 20th St.; New York, N.Y. 10003
27. William Taft — Address: 2038 Auburn Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45219
28. Woodrow Wilson — Address: 18-24 Coalter Street, Staunton, Va. 24401
29. Warren Harding — Address: Highways 97 and 288, Blooming Grove, Ohio 44878
30. Calvin Coolidge — Address: P.O. Box 247, Plymouth, Vermont 05056
31. Herbert Hoover — Address: West Branch, Iowa 52538
32. Franklin Roosevelt — Address: 519 Albany Post Road, Hyde Park, N.Y. 12538
33. Harry Truman — Address: 1009 Truman Ave., Lamar, Mo. 64759
34. Dwight Eisenhower — Address: 208 East Day St., Denison, Texas 75020
35. John Kennedy — Address: 83 Beals St., Brookline, Mass. 02146
36. Lyndon Johnson — Address: Box 329 Johnson City, Texas 78636
37. Richard Nixon — Address: 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd., Yorba Linda, Calif. 92686
38. Gerald Ford — Address: 3202 Woolworth Ave, Omaha, Neb. 68103
39. James Carter — Address: 300 North Bond St., Plains, Ga. 31780
40. Ronald Reagan — Address: 119 S. Main St., Tampico, Ill. 61283
41. George H.W. Bush — Address: 173 Adams St, Milton, Mass. 02187
42. Bill Clinton — Address: Bill Clinton was born at the Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Ark. The hospital has been demolished.
43. George W. Bush — Address: George W. was born to Barbara and George Bush in what was then Grace-New Haven Community Hospital and is now Yale-New Haven Hospital.
44. Barack Obama — Address: Unknown.
See the following links regarding the eligibility saga:
- Obama’s Presidential Eligibility: What You Need to Know
- Obama’s Sealed Background Documentation
- What’s the Difference Between a Birth Certification Versus a Birth Certificate?
- Keyes v. Lingle: Forensic Examiner and IT Expert Disprove Certification of Live Birth
- Obama Citizenship Facts
- The State Department and Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) Natural Born Citizen Resolution (April 10, 2008)
- Citizen Grand Jury Updates and Eligibility Lawsuit Listing
-Phil
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[...] Newsmax.com: Obama Birth Certificate Not Released [...]
[...] Newsmax.com: Obama Birth Certificate Not Released [...]
[...] Newsmax.com: Obama Birth Certificate Not Released [...]
[...] Newsmax.com: Obama Birth Certificate Not Released [...]
[...] the face of it, this admission would go along with Newsmax.com’s story that I reported on, here, in which the conservative-leaning news site specifically contacted the Hawaii Department of Health [...]
[...] Newsmax.com: Obama Birth Certificate Not Released [...]
[...] Newsmax.com: Obama Birth Certificate Not Released [...]
I said, “He’s entitled to his opinion,”
Sue said, “Bingo. This is just a reporters “opinion” with no factual evidence whatsoever to back up his opinion. No matter how the birthers continue to try to spin this, the actual facts speak for themselves. Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural born citizen, eligible to be President of the United States. Oh wait, he’s not just elibible to be President, he IS the President of the United States.”
I also said that Newsmax has “reporters” of all different persuasions, which is why I said Kessler is entitled to his opinion. If you read the article linked by Black Lion, you’ll see very few “facts” that Kessler independently discovered or reported. His story is nothing more than a compilation of what’s been “reported” previously, in many cases misreported, combined with Kessler’s opinions. But such IS journalism these days, as Sharon 2 has pointed out.
You do know that Dick Morris and Pamela Geller also report at Newsmax, don’t you? I suppose you agree with everything they have to say, as well as with Kessler.
bystander,
To date, I haven’t seen even scans of the physical HI COLB. I’ve seen no original documentation concerning this President’s background, yet I reasonably know it exists.
If you think that the President is eligible for the office of the presidency, then good on you. I am not convinced either way at this point.
And yes, there is wiggle room with any perspective, especially in this case, as things aren’t quite as cut-and-dried as, say, gravity’s existence.
-Phil