Remember my discussion several days ago about how some people, including the self-proclaimed pseudo-monarch “Akahi Nui”, manufacture bogus “evidence” that they then point to as if it were independent substantiation of their claims?

It turns out that this is exactly the kind of sleight of hand that’s going on with right-wing nuts questioning of Barack Obama’s birth in Hawaii, somehow allowing unsupported questions to be morphed into pseudo-“facts” as they are quoted from “official” documents.

There’s the Pennsylvania man, Philip Berg, who filed suit against Obama and the Democratic National Committee filled with allegations about Obama’s background and birth which have been rejected as “patently false”.

Berg then proceeded to use the legal discovery process to demand a long laundry list of documents and materials, along with “admissions” to a long list of questions without any basis.

Although Obama and the DNC moved quickly to ask that the court dismiss the suit and to halt discovery pending a ruling, Berg went on to assert that all of his questionable claims have been “admitted” because of the passage of what he claims is a legal deadline.

It’s a con, a scam, and an attempt to deceive the public.

Here in Hawaii, the Supreme Court has rejected a request to force the disclosure of Obama’s original birth certificate. There’s nothing surprising in the ruling, but it is again the right-wing using the courts to generate and spread their unsupported claims.

Whew. Then there’s Malia Zimmerman of Hawaii Reporter who reprints her exchange of emails with the Federal Transportation Administration and draws the conclusion that there is no federal requirement for city education and advertising about its rail plan.

When the federal representative responds that “there is no such policy”, it appears that he is responding to Zimmerman’s incredibly loaded question:

Is that true that your agency requires such an education campaign with four-color slick magazines with no spelling errors and hundreds of radio ads and expensive full-page newspaper ads in our dailies?

Meanwhile, the real question is whether federal policy requires public outreach.

I did a quick search and came up with Section 450.316 of the federal transportation regulations which describes the requirement for education, outreach, and public participation.

So was Zimmerman’s series of loaded questions a real attempt to clarify federal policy or a blatant attempt to make a political statement?

Anyway, here’s something different for the morning. It’s not my typical view of Kaaawa, but it is definitely a piece of Kaaawa. This is over at Nozawa’s farm, where they have a variety of animals that take part in petting zoo activities around the island. Anyway, not the normal sunrise.