Skepticality: Spot the Bull Interview

Following the publication of my book, Bullspotting: Finding Facts in the Age of Misinformation, I gave an interview to Skepticality, the podcast of Skeptic Magazine. And that interview aired last week:

Skepticality: Spot the Bull

Although the interview is not at all Birther-centric, it does involve a lot of discussion of pseudolaw, including flag fringers, tax deniers, and the "Lost" Thirteenth Amendment. And if there's not enough Birther material in the interview, the book's chapter on pseudolaw addresses Birthers and their illegitimate theories of citizenship.

Joel Gilbert's Evolving Disclaimer

In my first full post on Joel Gilbert and his pseudo-documentary Dreams From My Real Father, I showed how Gilbert has a history of rewriting the past when it comes to his movies. I noted below that Joel Gilbert keeps changing the claims on his website to avoid admitting that he's been discredited.

But what I discovered in reviewing Dreams From My Real Father on Netflix Streaming is that he's actually changed the movie itself.

Approximately one minute into the film appears a "Director's Note." It's basically a disclaimer, and it reads not unlike the disclaimers in Kevin Trudeau's fake-medical-advice books. Here's what it says on the DVD:

"This film's contents are based on actual events, interviews, and archives, as well as re-creations of probable events, using reasoned logic, speculation, and approximated conversations in an attempt provide a cohesive understanding of Obama's history.

"Is this the true story Barack Obama should have told, revealing his true political foundations and his agenda for fundamentally transforming America?"

Talking Points Media quoted this disclaimer back in May 2012. So did Gilbert fan Jack Cashill. Here's a screenshot from the film itself:

But that's not what you see if you watch the movie on Netflix, where it was made available for streaming just a few weeks ago. Rather, the Netflix version of the film carries this "Director's Note":

Notice the difference? Look what follows the words "reasoned logic" in the first sentence.

Apparently, the original DVD version of Dreams From My Real Father was based on "speculation," but the Netflix version isn't.

Interview on KRUU

I gave an interview with KRUU-FM about Gilbert's movie and about my new book, Bullspotting.

It's the first radio interview I've given in a long time (I have a few more scheduled), but I had fun and I thank the host for having me on to talk.

You can listen to the show at http://www.kruufm.com/node/14407.

Joel Gilbert's Ever-Changing Story

On the radio Tuesday, I stated that I'd be willing to debate Joel Gilbert on the air. I have absolutely ZERO expectation that he'll accept such an offer; he wouldn't let me interview him because he suspected what I knew, and he's certainly smart enough to not voluntarily step into the ring with someone who's already proven six ways from Sunday how dishonest he is. I mean, I've literally written a book on misinformation.

Instead, the best he can hope to do is to make up excuses that might buy him some time, and change the details of his story as part of a move-the-goalposts effort. Even before I'd started debunking his film he'd already demonstrated a propensity for evolving his story. For instance, in the film he claims that Stanley Dunham knew Frank Marshall Davis in 1960 as part of his CIA work, and was responsible for introducing Frank to his daughter Ann and for covering up her pregnancy by Frank. Yet on the radio, Gilbert repeatedly claims that when Ann came back from Indonesia in 1970, she told her dad "Remember that old Communist guy I used to hang out with? I want Barry to be raised by him." As if 1970-Stanley would have no recollection of everything 1960-Stanley knew and did. The stories are completely incompatible, but Gilbert doesn't care. He simply never tells them both together.

Or, take his own website, and how he's changed it in response to my very own posts on this blog. As I've proven, with greater and greater illustration, just how false Gilbert's claims are about the publication of his 'nude photos,' Gilbert has reacted by editing his website to change his story.

Here's a visual aid to show exactly how he's been altering his story as it appears on his Breaking News #2 page:

Original version: "Frank Marshall Davis' photos of Ann Dunham appear in these vintage men's magazines."

But it was all too easily proven that the photos weren't in those magazines shown. So he started claiming that those weren't the exact covers, but rather that the photos were just in those series.

First altered version: "Frank Marshall Davis' photos appear in these titles of vintage men's magazines."

Of course, then I showed, on video, that his own pictures appeared in Exotique #23, published in early 1958. Moreover, Exotique stopped publication in 1959. Yet his little graphic there is showing FOUR covers of Exotique, even though he's still claiming the photos were TAKEN in 1960. So he changed his story again, so it now claims that the pictures appeared just in these sorts of men's magazines, not the specific titles.

Second altered version: "Frank Marshall Davis' photos appeared in many titles of men's magazines throughout the 1960's."

Moreover, now he's also added a subscript claiming that my reprint collection shows incorrect dates. He provides no evidence of this, and for good reason: he's lying again. I didn't show the dates as represented in the book's introduction, or in the table of contents; I showed the copyright dates as they appeared on the reprinted pages from the original magazines. The collection didn't change the copyright dates on the reprinted pages; that would be silly. But Gilbert has backed himself into a corner at this point, and he's just making up whatever lies he can to avoid admitting his deception.

Quoted in the Orlando Sentinel

I was contacted earlier this week by a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, for a story on the bulk mailings of Dreams From My Real Father. The article is now online:

Anti-Obama DVD floods local mailboxes

The reporter includes a number of quotes and comments from me, which I won't reproduce in full here. But I'm quite happy with the closing quote he picked:

Gilbert insists the Obama film, which also alleges that the president's grandfather was a CIA operative, is a serious documentary. Collins considers it something else entirely.

"Typical conspiracist nonsense," he said.

Joel Gilbert vs. The Complete Exotique

I previously said that there was more to come on Joel Gilbert and his "Dreams From My Real Father," and this is the latter of those follow-ups.

There were some people who still doubted that Gilbert's pictures actually did appear in 1958. And so, I procured a copy of The Complete Exotique, and in the video below I flip through the pages of the book itself to show the photos and their publication dates. If it still proves necessary, I can also scan in pages from the books themselves.

Needless to say, Joel Gilbert's credibility is undeniably shot. Anyone who trusted him or gave him the benefit of the doubt should be taken advantage of.

UPDATE: It seems my video must have upset Mr. Gilbert, who filed a takedown notice with YouTube, presumably because my video criticizing his movie included a short clip from his advertisement in order to show the false claims he's making.

No worries, though. I'd already planned on uploading a shorter version of the ad that got to the books faster (I recognized that eight minutes made for a long video). And here it is:

Joel Gilbert Really Is Lying To You

(Title and graphic inspired by Joel Gilbert)

At the end of my last post, I mentioned that I had two developments in my research on Joel Gilbert that came too late to be included in my initial series on him and his movie, and so I would be following up with those two. This is the first of those developments.

In Part 5 of my series, "Joel Gilbert's Phantom Evidence", I discussed a number of claims that don't actually appear in Dreams From My Real Father, but which Joel Gilbert has taken to repeating in interviews.

For instance, on October 4, Gilbert told his interviewer that Ann Dunham and Frank Marshall Davis were intimate, and he said the following to support his claim (at about the 30:14 mark):

Gilbert: "We do have photos of them together in various compromising positions, we did cover things up to be respectful."

Now if you've watched Dreams From My Real Father, you know that the movie contains precisely ZERO photos of Ann and Frank "together". Not in compromising positions, or even in casual situations. There are no photos whatsoever of the two of them even sharing a frame. And he hasn't released such photos anywhere else. Gilbert is clearly not referring to photos he has secreted away; his qualifier about "cover[ing] things up to be respectful" makes no sense if the photos are just sitting on his hard drive.

No, Gilbert is telling his radio audience that he has pictures of Ann Dunham and Frank Marshall Davis "together in various compromising positions," and he wants them to believe that such photos are in his movie. But they're not. He knows they're not. He's lying.

But that's not the biggest lie that Gilbert has invented for interviews and the radio. Here is how WND's Jerome Corsi describes Joel Gilbert's Hawaiian 'investigation':

Before releasing a small sample of the pin-up photographs he claims shows a nude Ann Dunham posing for Davis, Gilbert undertook extensive research.

He traveled to Hawaii to inspect and photograph the Honolulu address that the FBI file documents as Davis’ residence beginning in 1956...

“The Davis house is an English Tudor architectural style dwelling, very uncommon for the Hawaii islands,” Gilbert told WND. “There are no similar houses in the neighborhood or anywhere else that I visited in Hawaii.”

The current owner of the house gave Gilbert permission to enter, photograph and document the house. “The flooring in the photos of Ann stands out, as at first glance it appears to be expensive wood flooring,” he said. “However, once inside the house and peeling away a corner covered with layers of linoleum, I realized that it was a simple piece of plywood that had been varnished.”

Gilbert found one complete original piece of plywood in a shed behind the house that was an exact match to the flooring in the setting where the “Ann Dunham and friends” pin-up photographs were taken.

Noteworthy also were the windows appearing in the pin-up photos. “The windows in the living room of Frank’s house were tall and narrow – a design unique to English Tudor style houses,” he noted.

“The windows at 2994 Kalihi Street appear to match the tall, narrow windows with their bottom sill low to the floorboards seen in the pin-up photos.”

Gilbert took measurements of the windows and the floor at various angles, as well as video footage and still photographs of the living room.

Also, here is Gilbert on Alex Jones:

"I actually went to the house in Hawaii...and we took the measurements and found that that was the house, and the photos are traced to Davis."

And I'm not about to list all the numerous times Gilbert has repeated this in his nine appearances on Peter Boyles' show. Listen for yourself if you're interested.

I pointed out before that although Gilbert keeps discussing these supposed findings of his, he has yet to actually show any of these photos or videos of the house. What I learned this Monday was WHY.

On Monday, October 1, I finally got the chance to speak with the owner of 2994 Kalihi Street. He'd been wondering when or if anyone would reach out to him about Gilbert's movie. We spoke for over 45 minutes, and during that time, he told me just how dishonest Gilbert's account has been.

It turns out that Gilbert originally contacted the owner (who I'll call "Jack") in the latter months of 2011, claiming to be with the History Channel. He said that he was working on a program about the poetry of Frank Marshall Davis, and wanted permission to visit Davis' house as part of his research.

It wasn't until March or April of 2012 that Gilbert finally asked to schedule a visit. By this point, Jack, who knew a little about the conspiracy theories circulating about Davis and his house, was suspicious of Gilbert. But he allowed him to come to the house, and even allowed him to come in to take photos. Jack had a hunch he knew what Gilbert was going to be looking for, and he thought that by letting him see the interior for himself, that Gilbert would see and understand that the nude pictures were not taken inside the house at 2994 Kalihi.

Jack's suspicions about Gilbert were confirmed when Gilbert whipped out a measuring tape. Gilbert had not previously asked to do any measuring, and Jack naturally recognized that the dimensions of his rooms would be utterly irrelevant to a History Channel documentary about Davis' poetry.

As Jack explained to me, what's the truth about the floors in his house? The truth is that they don't match the floors in the nude photos. The windows? They don't match the windows in the nude photos. The room seen in the published photos is plainly not a room inside the house at 2994 Kalihi Street.

Thus, it took Jack quite by surprise when a friend contacted him after Gilbert began promoting his movie, to let Jack know what was being said about his house. What he found surprised him. Whereas he had thought that by letting Gilbert inside the house that it would make Gilbert realize that his theory was wrong, Gilbert had instead gone a different route: he had simply decided to lie about what he found in Jack's house. He lied about the floors. He lied about the windows. He lied about finding the room from the photos. And that wasn't all: Gilbert's claim to have found "a complete original piece of plywood" in a shed that matched the flooring in the photos? That didn't happen at all, says Jack.

What's more, Jack was later contacted by Jerome Corsi himself, and Jack told him as well how his house bore no resemblance to the room seen in the photos. And displaying a complete disregard for journalistic integrity, Corsi simply ignored what Jack told him, and instead has reported Gilbert's story as the truth.

Now I'm sure some people will read this post and respond with "Why doesn't Jack show pictures proving his house doesn't match the photos?" Several reasons:

1) If I were to post pictures of the inside of Jack's house, there would be no way for me to prove to readers that it actually was the inside of *Jack's* house. It could just as easily be the interior of some other house. Such an objection would certainly be inevitable from people who want to believe Gilbert; if they don't trust my account of Jack, they're not going to trust the pictures either.
2) Even if it were conceded that the photos did indeed depict the house at 2994 Kalihi, the next inevitable objection would be that he and I had simply omitted pictures of some part of the house. A particular room, or even just a particular angle of a room. So once again, people would find a reason to conclude the pictures were unsatisfactory.
3) Apart from the issue of whether such pictures would actually persuade Gilbert's faithful, Jack is simply not interested in sacrificing his privacy to the extent of posting extensive pictures of the interior of his home on the internet. Certainly not in an effort to satisfy the doubts of some conspiracy theorists. Remember, any such photos are automatically tied to his street address; ask yourself if you would publish a bunch of photos of the inside of your house, tagged with your street address.
4) Finally it's not Jack's burden to prove that it's not his house in the nude photos. Nor is it mine. Joel Gilbert is the one who has claimed, again and again and again, that he found proof that the rooms match. That he took pictures and video showing that they match. And yet he put NONE of that in his movie, and he's produced NONE of that to the public, even though it's been six months since he visited Jack's house, and even though he continues to tout his 'investigation' in interviews.

(Notice, too, that I couldn't care less about Gilbert's claims about "measurements." Numbers that Gilbert himself wrote on paper isn't proof that those numbers are reflective of the inside of Jack's house, or that they're accurate estimates of what's seen in the published photos; remember, I've established that Gilbert knowingly lies to his audience. Also, I think the photos only show a total of two walls in the room, so any comparison of measurements would be speculative at best.)

Joel says he has the photos and video to prove his claims, so it falls to him to produce those photos and/or video to back those claims up. It's not Jack's job to sacrifice his privacy to prove Joel wrong. Joel already lied to Jack about why he wanted to come into the house in the first place, and he already lied to the world at large about what he found there.

And that's why you're never going to see those photos or video of 2994 Kalihi Street from Joel Gilbert. Not in his movies, not in his ads, not on his website, and not in WND articles that Jerome Corsi writes about him. He'll talk about them on the radio, where he can't be asked to show anything. But to show any actual photos he took would only prove what a liar he is.

Joel Gilbert. He lies to his research subjects about who he works for. He lies about what he's researching and why. And he lies about his findings to his audience.