Monday morning, and I just took an early spin through miscellaneous Hawaii news reported elsewhere.
• On Friday, CNN’s PoliticalTicker ran a column, “Debunking the birther claim.”
• A Washington Post column today, “Can the ‘birthers’ actually help Obama?”
It “creates, I think a problem for them when they want to actually run in a general election where most people feel pretty confident the president was born where he says he was, in Hawaii,” Obama said. “He doesn’t have horns. We may disagree with him on some issues and we may wish that you know, the unemployment rate was coming down faster and we want to know his plan on gas prices.
“But we’re not really worrying about conspiracy theories or or birth certificates,” Obama said, “and so I think it presents a problem for them.”
Obama seems eager to highlight the more extreme views of Republicans. In recent speeches, he has several times made jokes that referenced the birthers.
• An article in The Scotsman notes the parallels between the Honolulu and Edinburgh rail projects, citing rail opponent Panos Prevedouros.
Last week, First Minister Alex Salmond predicted Edinburgh’s tram project would come to “nothing at all,” despite £500 million worth of Scottish Government funding.
The controversial project, which was meant to be up and running by now, has been mired in a bitter dispute between the council and contractors.
Work has virtually halted and official figures show 72 per cent of the construction work remains to be done, with just 38 per cent of the budget left.
Reports from Hawaii claim the same consultants who drew up the business case for Edinburgh’s trams were also used in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where it is said the system was built at twice the original cost and five years late.
• “Sustained drop in Japanese visitors has befuddled Hawaiiian tourism officials at a loss“, today in The Cutting Edge.
Ironically, tourism officials contacted by The Cutting Edge News appeared unprepared for the sudden fall-off in tourism and disorganized in their response. Several official and agencies contacted indicated they were relying on data from Internet guesswork sites. Twelve calls to Hawaiian Airlines corporate communications went unanswered. Nine attempts to call local tourism officials met with unanswered telephones.
• Last week in The Hill, “Hawaii Dem: Anger from last Senate run could hurt Case.”
Hanabusa, who faced off against Case in the special election for former Rep. Neil Abercrombie’s seat last year, said some Democrats remain sore about that race.
“When you look at the multi-cultural base of the community that we have there, it’s something that probably does linger with a good portion of the Democratic base,” Hanabusa told The Ballot Box.
• And from Bloomberg last week: “WaMu Hawaii Trips for Bankers Drove Risk as Regulator Failed, Report Says“.
It’s another of those “Hawaii=Junket” stories that continue to gnaw away at business travel, I’m afraid.
Washington Mutual Inc. (WAMUQ), once the largest U.S. thrift, rewarded bankers for overcharging customers on subprime mortgages and selling the worst-performing loans to investors, a U.S. Senate panel concluded.
The lender gave its top producers free trips to places like Hawaii and the Bahamas in return for increasing mortgage volume, even as performance of the loans deteriorated, according to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on the financial crisis.
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IAN, looking at this from a purely political perspective, regardless of whether or not you have faith that Obama was legally born in the U.S., is it really in the best interest of the President to let this “birther stuff” linger and grow?
As we all know, the Republicans will use everything they can to bring Obama down during the next election. And let’s face it; Donald Trump elevated the birther movement a couple of notches in terms of publicity and raising doubts.
I am of the opinion that Obama should do what needs to be done to end the whole silly debate once and for all. As the saying goes, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
During the last election it was useful to draw comparisons with McCain, who was born in the Canal Zone of parents who were both U.S. citizens. Conservative blogs are hinting that every G.O.P. candidate for President in 2012 will be bringing a copy of their birth certificate to all speeches and debates very soon.
If we know what the “birthers” like Trump are asking for, why doesn’t Obama just provide the proof and say, “here you go, is this what you are looking for?”
Is there some legal issue or technicality that prevents Obama from providing more proof or information that will satisfactorily silence the critics once and for all, or are some of these people just way out there?
Very frustrating–no doubt about it.
““Sustained drop in Japanese visitors has befuddled Hawaiiian tourism offials at a loss“, today in The Cutting Edge.”
Hey, Cutting Edge;
The word is: offals
Birthers are a buncha kooks and deserve none of our wasted time. It is similar to chasing after chicken little screaming “the sky is falling” trying to calm her down. Who cares. lettem scream.
““Sustained drop in Japanese visitors has befuddled Hawaiiian tourism offials at a loss“, today in The Cutting Edge.”
Eh, Cutting Edge. The word is: offals.
Everyone should have expected that consistant drop in Japanese tourists after the announcement that a Japanese bank couldn’t fund paychecks. I think Japan getting back on their feet is more important than Japan traveling to Hawaii (or any other destination for that matter). Ganbatte!
Actually, Michael Peters, if you would click on the link to CNN that Ian provided, you would find the answers to the questions you raise about what the President has done and what he is prevented by law from doing.
He has done what you ask for, but it doesn’t make any difference to the true believers.
He has posted his birth certificate on line and provided it to news organizations to examine. It is the same birth certificate that is issued to every other person in Hawaii. It has a notary seal and signature which affirms that there is a legal birth certificate on file with the State of Hawaii.
The original from the hospital with the doctor’s signature is on file with the Department of Health. It can only be viewed by the President and specific others; it cannot be pulled from the records and viewed by others without a change to State law.
Both Alvin Onaka who is the State archivist and the head of Department of Health have testified that they have seen the birth certificate and it is valid.
A video on the CNN site goes through all of the fundamental questions about the birth certificate issue and ends with a statement that CNN and many other news organizations have found that the President was born in Hawaii.
No other President has had this kind of inquiry about his birth certificate; it is a reaction to the President’s ethnicity and cultural background by persons who are bigots and haters. And those like Trump who pander to such Know Nothings should be ashamed.
And before you jump on board the “Cutting Edge” bandwagon bashing Hawaii officials, you might want to ask yourself what is the “Cutting Edge” and who is their Senior Correspondent Martin Barillas.
Cutting Edge has supported Rep. Peter King’s hearings on “radicalization of the American Muslim Community” and the retrenchment of public union workers collective bargaining rights. Their take on those issues do not smack of fair and unbiased reporting.
Martin Barrillas is the Editor of the Spero News. Here was the spiteful piece he chose for the Day of Silence celebration http://www.speroforum.com/a/52298/Today-is-the-Day-to-end-silence-about-homosexuality
Hardly make you feel that he would be a fair investigative reporter.
I find it particularly galling that he names no names and provides no quotes to back up his assertions that Hawaii agencies were “unprepared” and “disorganized.”