tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26162613165508038402024-03-23T06:13:10.900-04:00BarackryphalA Skeptic's Guide to BirtherismUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger138125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-85756908645694123262013-12-22T22:15:00.000-05:002013-12-23T12:51:05.868-05:00After BirthersI launched this blog five years ago, in December 2008, as part of what was then an independent effort to debunk Birtherism before it had a chance to gain a foothold, like 9/11 Trutherism. And in January 2009, I thought that job was mostly done, and I moved on. Then five months later, in June 2009, I came back, prompted in large part by statements made by Shepard Smith about rumors and lies that were still cluttering his inbox.<br />
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Now here I am, looking back on five YEARS of blogging about Birthers, and realizing that it's time to move on.<br />
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I gave a podcast interview last year, just before the 2012 election, where I talked about what the future of Birtherism might be during a second Obama term. I predicted that it wouldn't die, and indeed it hasn't. But Birtherism has proven to be far more impotent in this past year than I'd anticipated. WorldNetDaily gave up regular Birther coverage even before the election. Orly Taitz is the last litigant still fighting and failing in the courtroom. The Cold Case Posse continues to occasionally hype itself on a couple of fringe podcasts, but even it hasn't done anything original in ages. As I've never been engrossed in simply rehashing old arguments, the lack of <i>new</i> material leaves little to investigate and address, and I have no interest in feeding the egos of the few remaining Birthers who keep trying to attract a spotlight. It's no accident that this blog has been so quiet for the past year. <a href="http://badfiction.typepad.com/">Patrick McKinnon</a> brought his Birther blogging to a close back in August for similar reasons.<br />
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In short, Birtherism, in its current state, is boring. And in many ways, that's a good thing. A stagnant conspiracy theory is not a growing conspiracy theory, after all.<br />
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This doesn't mean I'm giving up on Birtherism specifically, or on skepticism generally. I still plan to write a book about the Birthers, though the nature of the project has evolved considerably (and, I believe, for the better). If I have a story worth writing online, I might just ask to guest-publish it over at <a href="http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/">Doctor Conspiracy's site</a>; he's always gotten more hits than me anyways. This blog itself won't be going anywhere either; I just won't be updating it anymore.<br />
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And thus, this now seems like the time to pull back the curtain and talk about some of the things I've done online in the last five years that weren't part of this blog, and which I didn't talk about at the time.<br />
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First, way back in January 2009, I wrote about <a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2009/01/worldnetdailys-bogus-obama-petition.html">WND's bogus Obama investigation petition</a>, and how susceptible it was to fake signatures. In April 2010, <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2010/04/138633/">WND bragged about the petition crossing the half-million signature mark</a>.<br />
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Who was that 500,000th signee? <a href="http://wnd500000.blogspot.com/">It was me</a>. Indeed, to prove how utterly worthless this petition was, I signed it 216 times in a 20 minute period, leading up to the big symbolic number. All 216 entries had the exact same obviously-fake email address (a@a.com), the exact same obviously-fake surname (500K), and the first names were simply integers starting with "1" and counting upwards from there.<br />
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You have to register an account to post a comment at WND.com, but not to sign a petition. This shows why; they simply don't <i>care</i> about the veracity of the signatures on their petitions. In bragging about hitting the half-million mark, they'd have instantly spotted the hundreds of obviously-fake names I've submitted. It was unmistakeable, but they didn't care. All they care about is the fake number they can tout.<br />
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Second, there was another limited-purpose blog that I set up in 2010: <a href="http://ulster-man.blogspot.com/">Ulsterman's Untruths</a>. For a brief moment, Ulsterman was the sort of pundit who could only ever exist on the internet; an anonymous muckraker claiming to get inside information from other anonymous informants. And I demonstrated that before he started his "Insider" schtick, he had a habit of just fabricating fictional stories. It's hard to say how many people ever actually took Ulsterman seriously, but even though he continues to publish at his own website, he's just internet background noise at this point. This little project of mine had the notoriety of being <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/05/04/the-unbelievable-adventures-of-ulsterman-super/179320">cited by Media Matters</a>.<br />
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Third, back before it was behind a paywall, I wrote and submitted four articles that were published by the Birther website The Post & Email. Three of these were joke articles, designed to test the level of scrutiny that the website's editor would put on submissions from unknown contributors. How ridiculous could I get in making anti-Obama claims before the site would balk?<br />
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The answer: I never reached that point, because it published all three insane articles I offered up. The first claimed that college-age Obama had been hand-picked for the Presidency through connections with Bohemian Grove; it didn't matter to the website that I manufactured this connection out of thin air, or that Occidental College is nowhere near Occidental, California, where Bohemian Grove is located. Naturally, it didn't matter either that 'Bohemian Grove' has roughly the same cache among conspiracy theory proponents as 'Trilateral Commission' or 'The Illuminati.'<br />
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The second article claimed that Malcolm X was both Obama's biological father AND his illegitimate great-uncle. I fabricated a story about Obama's great-grandfather Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham being a serial philanderer, and that he'd fathered both Stanley Armour Dunham and Malcolm X (who in turn impregnated Ann). But even this tale of interracial and intergenerational incest didn't make the site bat an eye.<br />
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The third article was, at first blush, a general editorial about Obama. It talked about his false face and the monster beneath, about his DNA and his true nature. And in the midst of this, <u>every single hyperlink</u> in the article pointed to some external webpage that claimed Barack Obama is secretly an alien reptilian. Hence the references to his "forked tongue" and his "fake shell." Even some of the commenters started to balk at this one, but the Post & Email stood firm by its decision to publish an article claiming Obama is a shapeshifting alien. Amazingly, while the Post & Email appears to have since removed the first two articles (whether intentionally or accidentally), <a href="http://www.thepostemail.com/2011/03/03/whos-behind-the-mask-of-obama/print">the reptilian article is still there today</a>, almost three years later.<br />
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The fourth article wasn't a joke; it was a control. I wrote an article essentially taking the Birther point-of-view, and alleging that Birther Andy Martin wasn't eligible to run for President (as his father was a non-naturalized immigrant). While I didn't believe in the conclusion, this was the only article I submitted to the Post & Email where all the information cited was both true and credible. And yet this was the only one where the editor demanded that substantive changes be made to the article, because she wasn't comfortable with the allegations being made.<br />
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I was behind one other brief hoax in Birtherism in 2010, that of office supply store worker Chanise Foxx. A Birther at FreeRepublic had created the name and story in a post, and I borrowed it and treated it as true in <a href="http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/robert-gibbs-lies-about-obama-birth-certificate-white-house-press-secretary-lies-obama-birth-certificate-lou-dobbs-questioned-sean-hannity-questioned-glenn-beck-and-bill-oreilly-wake-up/#comment-109607">a comment at CitizenWells</a>. When the FreeRepublic server coincidentally went down the next morning, <a href="http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/chanise-foxx-free-republic-freerepublic-com-march7-2010-i-helped-obama-campaign-staffer-divorah-adler-create-a-fake-birth-certificate-fact-check-colb/">CitizenWells fell for it hard</a>, and the Birthersphere briefly went into a tizzy. It didn't last long, but the chaos was fun to watch while it lasted. (As an added bonus, my comment at CW linked to the personal website of the FreeRepublic poster who penned the story, and who was a highly prolific Birther in his own right. The fallout naturally hurt his online reputation, and he vanished from FR a few months later.)<br />
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I also recently started another blog that isn't intended for regular posts, but will instead be updated only as necessary: <a href="http://jeromecorsi.wordpress.com/">Jerome Corsi: America's Worst Journalist</a>. Other sites regularly document WND's journalistic failings, but as an author who can still occasionally fib his way onto the bestseller charts, I wanted there to be a Google-friendly, one-stop destination for the worst of Corsi's offenses. It's not to merely report his latest bit of rumormongering or smear attack, but rather to document when he dives into Stephen Glass/Jayson Blair levels of dishonesty that would get a reporter fired from any reputable news outfit.<br />
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Even though I never would have predicted that I would have spent nearly as much time and trouble as I did on the Birthers, I'm nonetheless proud of a lot of the work I did on this blog. I <a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2009/07/meet-ronald-jay-polland.html">exposed</a> the original Birther document expert, Ron Polarik, as a fraud, and while the Birthers long ago left him behind, it's been sad to see him fall further into fringe absurdities. I <a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/10/joel-gilbert-really-is-lying-to-you.html">destroyed</a> any hint of credibility of the DVD <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i>, which was the one Birther-friendly project outside of WND to have a measurable budget; my work even got cited (indirectly) <a href="http://l.barackobama.com/truth-team/entry/dreams-from-my-real-father-peddles-ridiculous-conspiracy-theories-about-pre/">by the President's own campaign site</a>. I caught Birther icons <a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2011/08/jim-racebannon-bancroft-birtherisms.html">RaceBannon</a> and <a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2011/04/american-expats-autobiographical.html">Larry Martin</a> in lies they were telling about their own personal experiences. And I <a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2011/06/secret-origin-of-birthers.html">documented</a> the play-by-play origins of the Birther rumor that started it all.<br />
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But there are other projects to move on to. Let me thus close out with a piece of advice: take the lessons you've learned about critical thinking in watching Birtherism, and try not only to impart them to others, but to also apply them to other parts of your life. You may not believe something as overtly silly and publicly debunked as Birtherism, but you may well hold some incorrect beliefs simply out of inertia, because you've never stopped to truly think critically about them. Remember that skepticism isn't a belief system; it's a process.<br />
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To that end, I suggest that if you've been interested in the Birther saga, then you should see what else the skeptical movement has for you. Podcasts like <a href="http://www.skeptoid.org/">Skeptoid</a>, <a href="http://www.trcpodcast.com/">The Reality Check</a> and <a href="http://www.theskepticsguide.org/">The Skeptics Guide to the Universe</a> provide weekly discussions on skeptical topics, websites like <a href="http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/">Science-Based Medicine</a> and <a href="http://doubtfulnews.com/">Doubtful News</a>, and <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/">What's the Harm</a> document new developments in skeptical news, and organizations like <a href="http://www.randi.org/site/">JREF</a> and <a href="http://www.skeptic.com/">The Skeptics Society</a> offer the opportunity to talk with fellow skeptics. Or if you'd rather sit down with a good book, try the works of Michael Shermer, Martin Gardner, Joe Nickell, or, of course, Carl Sagan. It was Sagan's book <i>The Demon-Haunted World </i>that so heavily influenced my development as a skeptic, after all, and I cannot recommend it strongly enough.<br />
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So thanks for the support for the past five years, and here's to bigger and better things in the next five.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-21741008039780081982013-06-14T23:29:00.001-04:002013-06-14T23:53:57.406-04:00Five-Year BirtherversaryThis month marks five years since the 'tipping' of Birtherism as a measurable belief. As I've documented, the rumors that would eventually give rise to Birther denialism originated in March 2008, but it was in June 2008, with a National Review post on June 9 and the publication of Obama's short-form birth certificate on June 12, that kicked off the online conspiracism.
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One of the things that has long fascinated me about Birtherism is how outsized its reach is as a casual conspiracy theory, in comparison to the rather small size of its active proponents. The 9/11 'Truth' Movement, for instance, has long managed to attract enough diehard believers to fill seats at seminars and conferences; by contrast, the Birther movement has never successfully pulled off even a decent-sized rally.
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In reflecting on this history, I realized that the Birther movement's leadership has remained so small and concentrated that it's actually possible to draw a through-line across the past five years, connecting the people who have, at different times, been the primary torchbearers of Birtherism.
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The original central figure of Birtherism, the first person to do anything more than write some angry posts online, was attorney Phil Berg. He filed the first Birther lawsuit in August 2008, as well as several subsequent suits, and he created the website ObamaCrimes.com, which quickly became the central forum for Birthers online.
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In September 2008, Berg came to be in contact with a street preacher named Ron McRae, who in October 2008 recorded a phone conversation between himself and Obama's Kenyan grandmother, Sarah Obama. A deliberately edited clip from that conversation was then used to promote the claim that Sarah had vouched for a Kenyan birth; when the full audio was eventually released, it was immediately evident why it had been edited down.
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Nonetheless, the interview claim had one massive legacy: it attracted the attention of WorldNetDaily and Jerome Corsi. Since June 2008, WND had largely ignored the fledgling Birther claims. It reported that they <i>existed</i>, but did not appear to place much credence in them. WND ran only a handful of articles about Obama's birthplace between June and September of 2008, including an infamous article in August 2008 where WND reported that its own experts had vouched for the authenticity of Obama's short-form birth certificate. And when Jerome Corsi visited Kenya in early October 2008, the contemporaneous coverage of his trip was concerned only with Obama's relationship with Raila Odinga; <u>none</u> of the articles published or interviews given during his trip made any reference to a controversy over Obama's birthplace, or that Corsi was interested in investigating such claims.
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But then Phil Berg made his announcement about the Sarah Obama interview in mid-October, and WND's interest was piqued. Whereas WND had run only six Birther-related articles in the previous four months (and the only two after August 8 dealt with Berg's lawsuit), it suddenly ran another six such articles in just the next three weeks before the election. Then, between November 4 (Election Day) and November 30, WND chief Joseph Farah wrote his first pro-Birther editorial column, WND started an online Birther petition, and the WND Forums got a new discussion board dedicated exclusively to Obama's eligibility. Although WND had all but ignored Birther claims prior to mid-October, by the end of November they were active and vocal proponents of Birtherism.
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As Phil Berg's prominence as a Birther leader began to dwindle (with his role as central Birther litigator usurped by Orly Taitz), WND took his place as Birtherism's most prominent cheerleader. Between October 20, 2008 and December 30, 2008, WND ended up running some 55 Birther-themed articles, and they more or less maintained that frequency for the next couple of years. In May 2009, WND started soliciting donations to fund its "Where's the Birth Certificate?" billboard campaign. Later in the year, WND released two Birther-themed DVDs: the Farah-hosted "A Question of Eligibility", and the Molotov Mitchell-created "For the Record: I'm Not Crazy." 2010 saw the publication of Aaron Klein's book "The Manchurian President". Throughout the next few years, WND also sold Birther-themed t-shirts, bumper stickers, and yard signs through its online store, and started multiple campaigns that encouraged its readers to donate money to fund pro-Birther efforts.
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WND's cultural penetration reached its apex in the first few months of 2011. WND contributor Jack Cashill's book "Deconstructing Obama" was published in February 2011, promoting Cashill's Bill-Ayers-as-Obama-ghostwriter claim that he had developed in his columns at WND. Donald Trump became Birtherism's most prominent spokesman, repeating various rumors about Obama's birth and youth. Comments of his suggested that he had been influenced by WND coverage, and WND itself would subsequently report about communications between Trump and WND reporter Jerome Corsi. And finally, Corsi's own book, "Where's the Birth Certificate?", was set for release in May 2011.
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Then came the morning of April 27, 2011, and the surprise press conference where Birthers were given exactly what they had demanded for three years: Obama's long-form birth certificate. And in response, they promptly pivoted and claimed it was fake. Within a week, Joseph Farah and Jerome Corsi were both on record as saying the long-form was fraudulent. This attitude led to Corsi's follow-up "Where's the REAL Birth Certificate?" and, more importantly, a particular speaking engagement in Arizona.
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The Surprise Tea Party in Maricopa County, Arizona invited Corsi to speak in August 2011, in order to present his argument that Obama's long-form was an elaborate fake. At this meeting, a petition was circulated asking Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio to investigate Obama's birth certificate, and the next day the petition was delivered by Corsi and the tea party leaders to the Sheriff. About two weeks later, Arpaio announced that he was assigning his Cold Case Posse to conduct such an investigation, and that the Posse would be headed by one Mike Zullo.
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What followed was several months when the Posse worked closely with Corsi in researching Birther claims, and in March 2012 they held a press conference where Zullo announced that (perhaps unsurprisingly) they had come to believe in the Birther claims that Corsi had been promoting for months and years prior. In fact, the day after the press conference, an e-book co-authored by Zullo and Corsi, titled "A Question of Credibility" was released online with a pricetag of $9.99. (Large portions of the e-book were subsequently found to be cut-and-pasted from old Corsi articles at WND.) The Posse's Birther beliefs were repeated in subsequent interviews and press conferences, with Mike Zullo remaining the only public voice of the Cold Case Posse, apart from Corsi.
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This partnership continued throughout 2011 and well into 2012, but in the final weeks before the 2012 election, Corsi and WND seemed to lose interest in Birtherism. In October 2012 Corsi resorted to promoting several wild claims about Obama, ranging from allegations about his parentage to his wedding ring to claims that he'd had a nose job, all of which originated with the director of an anti-Obama DVD. But Corsi and Farah stopped writing about Obama's birth and his Constitutional eligibility, and after the election they acknowledged in interviews that they considered the issue a non-starter, even as they insisted that they believed in its merits.
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While Corsi and Farah burned out, Mike Zullo kept the faith and pressed on. Insisting that he continues to devote considerable man-hours to the Posse investigation, Zullo now gives regular interviews where he promises new developments and discoveries, and claims that he has the ears of various powerful individuals. Without question, Mike Zullo is currently the central proponent and advancer of the Birther cause.
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And for Mike Zullo's dedication to Birtherism, we owe Jerome Corsi and Joseph Farah. And for Corsi's and Farah's dedication, we owed Phil Berg (and to an extent, Ron McRae). Without this handful of men, the history of Birtherism would likely have been far more fringe and obscure, a conspiracy theory relegated to websites like Infowars and frivolous litigants like Orly Taitz.
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I also can't help but wonder how the last five years of <u>my</u> life would be different without that chain of influence. Maybe I would've found more productive uses for my time than following and responding to this bit of political periphery; or maybe I would've wasted time in some other fashion. I have to imagine, though, that without Birtherism I wouldn't have written <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1616146346/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=suspensiono0e-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1616146346&adid=0KER4MFZG4TMG135HQZG&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fbarackryphal.blogspot.com%2F">a book</a>, and as a major highlight of my last five years, that works for me.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-80606124455314209242013-04-08T17:39:00.004-04:002013-04-08T17:39:54.686-04:00Skepticality: Spot the Bull InterviewFollowing the publication of my book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1616146346/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=suspensiono0e-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1616146346&adid=0VVH1K7FAZWAXVPFMQPR&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fbarackryphal.blogspot.com%2F">Bullspotting: Finding Facts in the Age of Misinformation</a></i>, I gave an interview to <a href="http://www.skepticality.com">Skepticality</a>, the podcast of Skeptic Magazine. And that interview aired last week:
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<a href="http://www.skepticality.com/spot-the-bull/">Skepticality: Spot the Bull</a>
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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.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-58779974213498923292013-01-31T10:00:00.000-05:002013-11-18T15:38:08.784-05:00Wayne Allyn Root's Columbia Conspiracism, Part 2<a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2013/07/wayne-allyn-roots-columbia-conspiracism.html">Last time</a>, I documented how Wayne Allyn Root was perfectly nonplussed about Barack Obama's Columbia credentials until early September 2008, when his public attitude suddenly changed from "Obama and I are fellow Columbia graduates!" to "So what's the story with Obama's years at Columbia?"
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In the years since, Root has been tagged with the 'Birther' label, which he rejects. Root <a href="http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2013/07/obama-classmate-wayne-allyn-root-rips.html">says</a> " that none of the questions I have asked about the President ever involved his birth or birth certificate. Never. Not once." This is actually untrue, but Obama's birth has admittedly never been the focus of Root's commentary.
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However, what <u>has</u> been the focus of Root's attempts to stoke a Columbia controversy has changed over the past five years. Even <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/07/reason-rewind-wayne-root-was-saying-the">Reason.com</a> noted this, noting that his 2012 comments echoed his 2008 comments, "Minus the Birther Twist".
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That twist, and the evolution of Root's Obama conspiracism, is evident when you look back at what he was actually saying in late 2008. In that September 2008 interview with Reason.com, Root first speculated as to why the young Obama didn't make an impression on his fellow students, and Root's theories were rather mundane:
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<blockquote>
<b>Wayne Root:</b> That's my point. Where was Obama? He wasn't an outgoing young man, no one ever heard of him.
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<b>Tim Cavanaugh:</b> Maybe he was a late bloomer.
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<b>Root:</b> Maybe. Or maybe he was involved in some sort of black radical politics.
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<b>Matt Welch:</b> Ooooooooooh.
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<b>Root:</b> Maybe he was too busy smoking pot in his dorm room to ever show up for class. I don't know what he was doing!...
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<b>Welch:</b> That's peculiar! Do you have any theories?
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<b>Root:</b> Don't have any theories. I don't know. Don't know why. Kept to himself.... The only thing I could even imagine is that he talks in his biographies about being, you know, his identity crisis, his "am I black or am I white?" He chose black. And he hung out with a couple of black kids and never went near anybody and his wife? That's the only thing I can think of. All my buddies are white, what can I tell you! They don't know him, nobody's ever seen him, I don't know what to tell you.</blockquote>
Then, when Root opined on precisely what he thought Obama's college records would prove, his suspicions were similarly ordinary:
<blockquote>
<b>Root:</b> And I'd be willing to bet every dime I have in the world, a million dollars I'll put, I'll put a million dollars cash on the fact—
</blockquote>
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<b>Welch:</b> This is on the record—
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<b>Root:</b> —that my GPA was better than Barack's—
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<b>Welch:</b> Oooooh.
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<b>Root:</b> ...and he got in based on the color of his skin.<br />
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So to summarize Root's position in 2008: 1) He claimed other Columbia students don't remember Obama, 2) He admitted he had no theories as to why others didn't remember him but suggested it was maybe because Obama was a slacker or because he hung out with black students, 3) He thought he earned a better GPA than Obama, and 4) He thought Obama was admitted to Columbia and/or Harvard because of affirmative action.
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Now while this is certainly a distinct change from Root's previous "Obama/Root Columbia '83!!!" attitude, note what he WASN'T saying. He was not saying that Obama's Columbia years are suspicious in any way, or that he didn't actually graduate, or that he was a foreign student, or that he used a different name, or that there's some larger coverup. He was just suggesting that Obama was a poor student, and that he might've benefited from race-based admission policies. Are these <i>meritorious</i> accusations? Maybe, maybe not. But they're uncomplicated and free of any real conspiratorial or 'Birther' overtones.
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And Root maintained this attitude through the latter months of 2008. <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry080908-102443">Days after the Reason interview was published</a>, Root was entirely focused on grades, and still wasn't disputing Obama's actual tenure at Columbia:
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<blockquote>
That is why I've made this public challenge to my classmate Barack Obama- to prove that his grades were better than mine, and to thereby prove that he deserved to gain admission to Harvard Law School. I think Barack owes us all the opportunity to see his Columbia college transcripts.
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Barack and I are on opposite ends of the spectrum; we've lived lives inside different colored skin; had different experiences; faced different challenges, yet graduated from the same college (Columbia University Class of '83) on the same day, with the same major exactly 25 years ago. We now make history together- as the first college classmates to run on opposing Presidential tickets.</blockquote>
In comments to WorldNetDaily <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2008/09/76504/">in October 2008</a>, he again reiterated that his issues were grades and affirmative action:
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<blockquote>
“Yet, Barack was accepted to Harvard Law School. Was it because of his grades, test scores and college record? Or, was it because of the color of his skin?” asked Root.</blockquote>
Even into <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry090212-104106">early 2009</a>, Root still wasn't conspiratorial about Obama's time at Columbia:
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<blockquote>
Here is a tale of two classmates. President Barack Obama and I both attended Columbia University, Class of 1983. We both majored in Political Science and Pre Law.</blockquote>
In May 2010, Root agreed (at first) to speak at Rev. James Manning's bizarre 'CIA Columbia Obama Sedition and Treason Trial,' where it was alleged that Obama was actually a CIA operative during his claimed years at Columbia University. But on the eve of the event, Root backed out, <a href="http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2010/05/wayne-allyn-root-why-i-decided-not-to-testify-at-the-%E2%80%9Cobama-trial%E2%80%9D/">and published a public explanation explaining why</a>.
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<blockquote>
I explained that I do NOT believe there is any cover-up by Columbia University administration...I told Pastor Manning however that none of this is factual proof that Obama did not attend Columbia. Nor do I believe my university would ever participate in a cover-up. I have simply been asked by many in the media for several years now if I knew my famous classmate and I’ve always answered honestly. I’ve always stated publicly that my assumption is that he went to Columbia, but probably rarely (or never) attended classes. Perhaps he was too busy pursuing a radical political agenda. Perhaps he was too busy hanging out with his radical friends plotting the destruction of capitalism or the overthrow of America. I assume he spent most of his time at Columbia off campus and took what is often called at Ivy League colleges a “Gentleman’s C” for simply showing up for final exams.</blockquote>
In the midst of these denials, note what Root is nonetheless still admitting his familiarity with. The Manning mock trial itself, obviously. But also the name "Barry Sotero," which he felt was important enough to randomly bring up. He plainly believes the false meme that Obama had "sealed" his college records. And of course there's the 400 classmates report, which likely led to his initial change in attitude in 2008.
<br />
But just because Root was distancing himself from Manning's conspiracy theories doesn't mean that Root was adverse to Obama-related conspiracy theories. He was trending in that direction at least as early as <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry090914-090754">September 2009</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
Actually I believe that my college classmate (Columbia University, Class of ’83) is brilliant. Nothing he does is out of ignorance or naiveté. Therefore this must all be part of a well thought-out plan to destroy the U.S. economy. Why? I can only surmise that Obama's plan from day one has been to wreck capitalism; destroy Wall Street and the banks (the very heart of capitalism); expand the size and scope of government dramatically; get the American people so fearful as to demand bigger government to “save” them and get involved in every aspect of their lives; and thereby introduce Socialism without debate.</blockquote>
It was finally in 2012, in the months before Obama was up for reelection, that Root decided to commit to the same sorts of conspiracy theories he'd rebuffed two years earlier. In August 2012, in a post titled <a href="http://www.rootforamerica.com/webroot/blog/2012/08/07/obamas-college-classmate-the-obama-scandal-is-at-columbia/">"The Obama Scandal Is At Columbia"</a>, Root kicked off his discussion of Obama's Columbia years with this declaration:
<br />
<blockquote>
My bet is that Obama will never unseal his records- never...EVER. Because they contain information that could destroy his chances for re-election.</blockquote>
Remember how in 2008, Root was just suggesting that Obama's college records might show he had a mediocre GPA or might have benefited from affirmative action? Forget that. Now Obama's college records are so explosive that they "could destroy his chances for re-election"!!
<br />
Root continues:
<br />
<blockquote>
If anyone should have questions about Obama’s record at Columbia University, it’s me. We both graduated (according to Obama) Columbia University, Class of ’83. We were both (according to Obama) Pre-Law and Political Science majors. And I thought I knew most everyone at Columbia. I certainly thought I’d heard of all of my fellow Political Science majors. But not Obama (or as he was known then- Barry Soetoro). I never met him. Never saw him. Never even heard of him. And none of the classmates that I knew at Columbia has ever met him, saw him, or heard of him.</blockquote>
<i>"(according to Obama)"</i>. That's certainly new. Even after the 2008 election, Root never disputed the specifics of Obama's Columbia degree. And in his public statement during the Manning 'trial' in 2010, Root said <i>"All I can testify to is that I was a member of the Class of ’83- just like Obama. And that I was Pre Law and a political science major- just like Obama."</i> He was adamant that he did <i>"NOT believe there is any cover-up by Columbia University administration."</i> But by 2012, even those foundational facts had been replaced with doubt as to whether Obama had graduated from Columbia at all.
Also notable here: "(or as he was known then - Barry Soetoro)". He's asserting, in print, that Obama used the name "Barry Soetoro" at Columbia. Even though he says <i>immediately thereafter</i> that he never heard of him. And even though the one and only instance of the name "Barry Soetoro" has always been when Obama was 6 years old.
<br />
<blockquote>
The first question I’d ask is, if you had great grades, why would you seal your records? So let’s assume Obama got poor grades. Why not release the records? He’s President of the free world, for gosh sakes. He’s commander-in-chief of the U.S. military. Who’d care about some poor grades from three decades ago, right?So then what’s the problem? Doesn’t that make the media suspicious? Something doesn’t add up.</blockquote>
It's rather funny to see Root ask who'd care about some poor grades from three decades ago. Because Root <u>began</u> this entire downward spiral in 2008 by caring about somebody else's grades from three decades ago.
<blockquote>
Secondly, if he had poor grades at Occidental, how did he get admitted to an Ivy League university in the first place? And if his grades at Columbia were awful, how’d he ever get into Harvard Law School? So again those grades must have been great, right? So why spend millions to keep them sealed?</blockquote>
Here we see Root repeating one of the boilerplate Birther memes that he apparently fell for: that Obama spent millions of dollars to keep his records secret. This, like his use of "Barry Soetoro" above, indicates the sort of information Root chose to absorb and believe since 2008.
<blockquote>
Third, how did a poor kid pay for all these fancy schools? If he had student loans or scholarships, don’t American students need good grades to maintain student loans?</blockquote>
Actually, no, they don't. Students need to maintain satisfactory academic progress to keep receiving student loans. That usually means something like a C-average. Root originally just suggested that Obama's grades at Columbia weren't stellar; is he now suggesting that Obama actually <i>failed</i> classes?
In any case, Root then advances his theory on Obama's time at Columbia, and it's a lot more sweeping than his 2008 theory of 'He was a slacker':
<br />
<blockquote>
I can only think of one answer that would explain this mystery.
</blockquote>
<br />
So here’s my gut. I believe Obama got a leg up by being admitted to both Occidental and Columbia as a foreign exchange student. He was raised as a young boy in Indonesia. Did his mother ever change him back to a U.S. citizen? I’m betting not. He was abandoned by his mother and sent back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. No one was paying much attention to young Obama, so his citizenship was never changed back. But suddenly as he nears college-age Obama learns that foreign students have a much easier path being admitted to U.S. universities. And even more amazingly, they get loads of aid and scholarships to attend college for free- something unavailable to U.S. citizens.
<br />
So a plan is hatched. Obama uses his Indonesian passport and citizenship to get into college. Suddenly even Ivy League Columbia University is a possibility- for a foreign student from Indonesia. And it’s all paid for by the taxpayers.
<br />
That would explain how a poor student who rarely attended class and got mediocre grades, and with no money, was able to get accepted and pay for Occidental, Columbia and Harvard Law. The door magically opened for a foreign student with an exotic background.
<br />
The sad reality is there is some U.S. student- a Valedictorian of his or her school- who never got to go to Columbia or Harvard Law because Barry Soetoro took their place.
<br />
That would also explain the great mystery of how in the summer of 1981 Barry Soetoro was able to travel to Pakistan when no U.S. citizen was allowed to travel there. Did he use his Indonesian passport?
<br />
Of course a foreign student isn’t qualified to serve as President of the United States. So that secret had to be sealed and covered up for the rest of all time. In 2007 everything happened so fast no one could even ask questions…ask Hillary! That explains why a sitting President of the United States would spend millions of dollars in legal fees to keep his past sealed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
If you lost track there, Root's allegations now include 1) Obama became an Indonesian citizen, 2) Obama never regained U.S. citizenship, 3) Obama had an Indonesian passport, 4) Obama claimed to be a foreign exchange student to get into college, 5) Obama's college education was paid for by taxpayer-funded foreign aid, 6) The Pakistan travel ban myth, 7) Obama has spent millions of dollars to keep his records sealed, and...wait for it...8) Obama may not be eligible to be President at all!
<br />
That's quite a list. Root himself itemizes what he now thinks Obama's college records would show:
<br />
<blockquote>
If you could unseal Obama’s Columbia University records I believe you’d find that:
<br />
A) He rarely ever attended class.<br />
B) His grades were not those typical of what we understand it takes to get into Harvard Law School.<br />
C) He attended Columbia as a foreign exchange student.<br />
D) He never paid for either undergraduate college or Harvard Law School because of foreign aid and scholarships given to a poor foreigner like this kid Barry Soetoro from Indonesia</blockquote>
To refresh your recollection, 2008 Wayne Allyn Root was willing to bet that Obama's college records would show that he had a lower GPA than Root. And that maybe, as a black student, he was aided by affirmative action.
Whereas 2012 Wayne Allyn Root was willing to bet that Obama's college records would show that he was a foreign exchange student with Indonesian citizenship named Barry Soetoro who paid for college with foreign aid money. And that he had a subpar GPA and rarely went to class (<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/wayne-allyn-roots-confusing-obamacolumbiacommunist-conspiracy">but nonetheless was indoctrinated into Marxism</a>).
<br />
And this change in opinion was effected despite the fact that <i>no additional evidence appeared in the interim four years to support the new claims</i>. There was an April Fool's joke about Obama being a foreign exchange student, and plenty of additional information supporting that Obama was a perfectly ordinary college student. Yet Root's beliefs only got wilder and wilder.
<br />
If only he'd followed his own advice that he wrote when he backed out of James Manning's mock trial:
<br />
<blockquote>
I found myself uncomfortable being involved or associated in any way with the wild charges, claims and conspiracy theories that have been publicly aired by this mock trial. I believe these wild charges and claims actually damage any future legitimate opportunity to question President Obama’s background.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-72231099069108016132013-01-12T18:41:00.000-05:002013-11-18T15:42:28.150-05:00Wayne Allyn Root's Columbia Conspiracism, Part 1Wayne Allyn Root, who was the Libertarian Party's candidate for Vice President in 2008*, has continued to occasionally pop up on the Birther radar in the last four years, typically espousing arguments and accusations that Barack Obama's Columbia University education is somehow...suspicious. Root, who graduated from Columbia in 1983 like Obama, has floated multiple theories, while being seemingly reluctant to commit to any one. But is this suspicion about Obama something that Root has always felt? Or did it only appear, suddenly, right before the 2008 election?
<br />
Root announced his candidacy for President on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iau-ejqk8MM%E2%80%8E">May 4, 2007</a>. That day, <a href="http://uscommonsense.net/2007/05/31/barack-obama-co-graduate-wayne-allen-root-announces-libertarian-presidential-run/">Root released a press release</a> that <u>BEGAN</u> with this sentence:
<br />
<blockquote>
Barack Obama and Wayne Allyn Root used to have one thing in common, both graduated from the same college class, Class of ’83 Columbia University; after Root’s announcement they share a second commonality, they are both running for the 2008 Presidential election.</blockquote>
Notice that in May 2007, Obama and Root's Columbia connection was a <i>bragging point</i> for Root. It wasn't until September 2008, over a year and a half later, in <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2008/09/05/wayne-allyn-roots-million-doll">an interview with Reason.com</a>, that Root first began publicly disputing Obama's Columbia credentials:
<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Matt Welch:</b> So tell us what we should know about Barack Obama that we don't?
<br />
<b>Wayne Allyn Root:</b> I think the most dangerous thing you should know about Barack Obama is that I don't know a single person at Columbia that knows him, and they all know me. I don't have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. Ever!<br />
...<br />
<b>Root:</b> Class of '83 political science, pre-law Columbia University. You don't get more exact than that. Never met him in my life, don't know anyone who ever met him. At the class reunion, our 20th reunion five years ago, 20th reunion, who was asked to be the speaker of the class? Me. No one ever heard of Barack! Who was he, and five years ago, nobody even knew who he was.<br />
...<br />
<b>Welch:</b> That's peculiar! Do you have any theories?
<br />
<b>Root:</b> Don't have any theories. I don't know. Don't know why. Kept to himself.... The only thing I could even imagine is that he talks in his biographies about being, you know, his identity crisis, his "am I black or am I white?" He chose black. And he hung out with a couple of black kids and never went near anybody and his wife? That's the only thing I can think of. All my buddies are white, what can I tell you! They don't know him, nobody's ever seen him, I don't know what to tell you.</blockquote>
That's almost exactly sixteen months between beginning his run for President and his first attempt to cast aspersions upon Obama's history. Still, this sort of delay might be excusable; for instance, if Root was never presented with an opportune time to share any preexisting doubts about Obama's time at Columbia.
<br />
Except Root not only had <u>many</u> such opportunities, but, as illustrated by that initial press release, he unabashedly made his shared alma mater with Obama <b><i>an overarching theme of Wayne Root's own Presidential campaign</i></b>. Root didn't <u>question</u> Obama's Columbia credentials; he <u>emphasized</u> them at every possible opportunity, for over a year and a half.
<br />
Root's campaign website, Root4America.com, featured a blog that Root made regular posts to. Like <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry070515-124639">this post on May 15, 2007</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
Barack Obama (my Columbia College Class of '83 classmate) certainly doesn't think like you.</blockquote>
On <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry070917-093037">September 17, 2007</a>, Root published a post that compared and contrasted his and Obama's Columbia experiences at length:
<br />
<blockquote>
<b>OBAMA vs. ROOT- Two Very Different Career Paths from Columbia University Class of 1983: The Case for a Small Businessman as President</b>
<br />
Barack Obama and I both graduated from the same class at the same college- Columbia University, Class of '83. We both chose the same major-Political Science. Today we are both running for President of the United States. The only difference is that Barack is the darling of the liberal news media- who give him a "free pass" on whether he's qualified to run the greatest country and economy in world history. Since we come from such similar educational backgrounds, yet we each chose such divergent paths since graduation, I thought a study of what each has accomplished in the "real world" might shed some light on who is best qualified to occupy the White House and run the greatest economy in world history...<br />
I'm sure my old college classmate Barack is a nice guy. I'm certain he's a smart guy. I know he went to a great college!</blockquote>
Obama was mentioned again in passing on <a href="http://www.rootforamerica.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry070924-082840">September 24, 2007</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
[O]ver 25 years later as I read my Columbia College Today alumni magazine and see updates on the career success of my classmates, I see the names of future Supreme Court justices, close advisors to Presidents (George Stephanapoulus was a classmate), liberal United States Senators (Barack Obama of Illinois), the best and brightest legal minds in the country (any wonder lawyers seem to be at the root of most problems in our society?), and many of the most influential journalists and media executives in America.</blockquote>
And again on <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry071009-080245">October 9, 2007</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
Then there's my old Columbia College classmate Barack Obama.</blockquote>
And again on <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry080114-081929">January 14, 2008</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
Hillary has never risked her own money on a business, never created a job, never run any business of any kind. Ditto for my Columbia College '83 classmate Barack Obama.</blockquote>
Root similarly referenced his common Columbia background in an <a href="http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_interviews_U.S._Libertarian_presidential_candidate_Wayne_Allyn_Root">interview with Wikinews on February 6, 2008</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Mr. Root:</b> Barack Obama (my college classmate Columbia University Class of '83) talks nonstop about change. So do Hillary and McCain. None of them are agents of change.</blockquote>
In a blog post on <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry080229-092606">February 29, 2008</a>, Root didn't simply off-handedly refer to Obama as a "classmate"; he dwelled on that commonality, and stressed its details:
<br />
<blockquote>
You see I am not just Barack's match as a salesman and communicator of a political message. I am Barack Obama's college classmate. Yes, we are graduates of the same college (Columbia University), same class (Class of '83), same major (Political Science). We graduated on the same day 25 years ago. Never before in the history of American politics have two college classmates run against each other for President. Talent aside, sometimes you just need a bit of luck. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined running for President in the same election as my college classmate.</blockquote>
Then, in an
<a href="http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/7027/">interview with Glenn Beck on March 7, 2008</a>, Root was actually <i>asked</i> if he remembered Obama from their Columbia days. And Root's answer didn't raise the spectre of fraud or misconduct; Root simply admitted he didn't know Obama, and didn't think that was odd:
<br />
<blockquote>
<b>GLENN:</b> Hang on just a second. You were actual — did you have any classes with Barack Obama?
<br />
<b>ROOT:</b> Well, I’m sure I did. I just never knew him. We were both political science majors at the same college, Columbia University, graduated in the class of ’83. So I guarantee you we were sitting in the same classes together but I did not know him. It’s probably a graduating class of 600 or 700. So it’s very possible to be in the same class and not know a person. I didn’t know everyone in the whole class.</blockquote>
Root again emphasized his and Obama's shared Columbia roots in <a href="http://crazyforliberty.com/2008/05/08/wayne-allyn-root--your-candidate-for-the-libertarian-party-presidential-nomination-press-release.aspx">this May 2008 press release from Root's campaign</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
Wayne went onto graduate prestigious Columbia University Class of 1983 in political science (classmate of Barrack Obama). Wayne and Barrack Obama will be the first classmates to ever run against each other for President.</blockquote>
The Columbia connection was again invoked in a blog post of Root's on <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry080516-085222">May 16, 2008</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
Wayne Allyn Root is a New York-born son of a butcher; small businessman; home-school father of 4 young children; Ivy League-educated college classmate of Barack Obama;</blockquote>
And on <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry080523-081506">May 23, 2008</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
A Root victory in the Libertarian nominating convention would set the stage for a history-making election. Root, like Senator Barack Obama, was a 1983 graduate of Columbia University, which according to Root, creates the first presidential contest in history featuring two college classmates from the same graduating class squaring off against each other.</blockquote>
And again on <a href="http://root4america.com/webroot/oldblog/index.php?entry=entry080811-085331">August 11, 2008</a>, just three weeks before the Reason interview where he first questioned Obama's grades at Columbia:
<br />
<blockquote>
That loan, by the way, helped pay my way through Columbia University Class of 1983, the same graduating class as Barack Obama...It is telling to contrast my choices with those of my college classmate Barack Obama - who graduated on the same day 25 years ago.</blockquote>
Even after that interview, and after the election, the bio that Root attached to multiple blog posts in 2009 still included this sentence:
<br />
<blockquote>
Wayne also happens to be Barack Obama's college classmate (Columbia University Class of '83).</blockquote>
So what, if anything, happened between August 11, 2008, when Wayne Root seemingly had no qualms with Obama's Columbia education, and August 28, 2008**, when he was willing to offer a million dollars to make Obama release his college records?
Well, on August 18, 2008, Fox News aired <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/08/18/presidential-character-conduct-2008-barack-obama/">"Presidential Character & Conduct 2008: Barack Obama"</a>. This was the program that infamously said that 400 Columbia graduates were contacted, and none of them knew Obama. Curiously, just weeks after that was broadcast, Wayne Allyn Root suddenly stopped bragging about his Columbia connection with Obama, and instead started questioning Obama's time there.
<br />
And that's just what led up to Root's change of heart. In Part 2, we'll look at how Root has descended further into conspiracism and crankery since September 2008.
<br />
----------<br />
*Secret shame: I (reluctantly) voted for Root in 2008. I liked Bob Barr, but not Root. So much so that even as a VP candidate on a zero-chance third-party ticket, I was strongly tempted to not vote Libertarian. It was only the fact that he had absolutely no chance of occupying the VP's office that I was able to conscientiously vote for a ticket with him on it.<br />
**The Reason article was published September 5, but the intro explains that the interview was conducted on or about August 28.<br />
<br />
(This post and its follow-up were originally posted in July 2013. Since the blog has been effectively retired due to a lack of novelty in the Birther arena, I've since backdated these two posts in order to keep the Birtherversary and Skepticality posts at the top of the page. The Birtherversary post, in particular, I felt was a better feature item than a random treatment on Mr. Root.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-27710401770827218602012-10-27T11:10:00.001-04:002012-10-27T12:28:50.916-04:00Joel Gilbert's Evolving DisclaimerIn <a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/09/fever-dreams-from-my-real-father-7.html">my first full post</a> on Joel Gilbert and his pseudo-documentary <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i>, 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.
<p>
But what I discovered in reviewing <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i> on Netflix Streaming is that he's actually changed <b><u>the movie itself</u></b>.
<p>
Approximately one minute into the film appears a "Director's Note." It's basically a disclaimer, and it reads not unlike the disclaimers in <a href="http://www.lorencollins.net/trudeau/">Kevin Trudeau's</a> fake-medical-advice books. Here's what it says on the DVD:
<p>
<blockquote>"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.
<p>
"Is this the true story Barack Obama should have told, revealing his true political foundations and his agenda for fundamentally transforming America?"</blockquote>
<p>
Talking Points Media <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/obama_birther_movie_dreams_from_my_real_father.php">quoted this disclaimer</a> back in May 2012. So did Gilbert fan <a href="http://www.cashill.com/intellect_fraud/is_frank_marshall_davis.htm">Jack Cashill</a>. Here's a screenshot from the film itself:
<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6IL2eWPe0Zs8NowdkVQ0WBUe0-f9bPh87QPQNMViDXFisiIy40PbFKlo-GKPIn2g-LghE2VGTRtVH5xHGo4z6ffv-OTOvrQ5_PGZgUOxGJXzmfyab0R_U6qUfWrewR-ewDxsEtctzakmk/s1600/GilbertDisclaimerDVD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="225" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6IL2eWPe0Zs8NowdkVQ0WBUe0-f9bPh87QPQNMViDXFisiIy40PbFKlo-GKPIn2g-LghE2VGTRtVH5xHGo4z6ffv-OTOvrQ5_PGZgUOxGJXzmfyab0R_U6qUfWrewR-ewDxsEtctzakmk/s400/GilbertDisclaimerDVD.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
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 <i>this</i> "Director's Note":
<p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDaamP4bgqGy17wm3ZTiqhAORRwmYRm01qgg1wR9p5Q_CWudChnu6xYJ6m_LezNhiCePWn24GtujBLLYLmDd7wjwNrLOKvD2v8YyWMreCwU1dWg_nXdvG2uDVPuNI1ROVtAOQKgM2gf2ox/s1600/JoelGilbertDisclaimerNetflix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="225" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDaamP4bgqGy17wm3ZTiqhAORRwmYRm01qgg1wR9p5Q_CWudChnu6xYJ6m_LezNhiCePWn24GtujBLLYLmDd7wjwNrLOKvD2v8YyWMreCwU1dWg_nXdvG2uDVPuNI1ROVtAOQKgM2gf2ox/s400/JoelGilbertDisclaimerNetflix.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
Notice the difference? Look what follows the words "reasoned logic" in the first sentence.
<p>
Apparently, the original DVD version of <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i> was based on "speculation," but the Netflix version <u>isn't</u>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-40161630173946318952012-10-27T10:35:00.002-04:002012-10-27T10:36:01.195-04:00Interview on KRUUI gave an interview with KRUU-FM about Gilbert's movie and about my new book, <u><b>Bullspotting</b></u>.
<p>
It's the first radio interview I've given in a <i>long</i> time (I have a few more scheduled), but I had fun and I thank the host for having me on to talk.
<p>
You can listen to the show at <a href="http://www.kruufm.com/node/14407">http://www.kruufm.com/node/14407</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-58054599217352041802012-10-25T01:08:00.001-04:002012-10-27T00:12:32.795-04:00Joel Gilbert's Ever-Changing StoryOn 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.
<p>
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.
<p>
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.
<p>
Here's a visual aid to show exactly how he's been altering his story as it appears on his <a href="http://www.obamasrealfather.com/breaking_news002/">Breaking News #2 page</a>:
<p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil_NzEEXVuZm30poRIB8WlztPCvcp4cPXUOfbm1Be80e_mRt981gAdAVQx7KplTKJhrmJ20IctQkOXumG4r2vg2fqCZMWDeNwRXG2xcaz41aj4wkBnUBNOLAaJh4CHqpJamIyqeuc6FTYv/s1600/GilbertAppears.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil_NzEEXVuZm30poRIB8WlztPCvcp4cPXUOfbm1Be80e_mRt981gAdAVQx7KplTKJhrmJ20IctQkOXumG4r2vg2fqCZMWDeNwRXG2xcaz41aj4wkBnUBNOLAaJh4CHqpJamIyqeuc6FTYv/s400/GilbertAppears.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
<b>Original version: "Frank Marshall Davis' photos of Ann Dunham appear in these vintage men's magazines."</b>
<p>
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 <i>exact</i> covers, but rather that the photos were just in those series.
<p>
<b>First altered version: "Frank Marshall Davis' photos appear in <u>these titles</u> of vintage men's magazines."</b>
<p>
Of course, then I showed, on video, that his own pictures appeared in <i>Exotique</i> #23, published in early 1958. Moreover, <i>Exotique</i> stopped publication in 1959. Yet his little graphic there is showing FOUR covers of <i>Exotique</i>, 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 <i>sorts</i> of men's magazines, not the specific titles.
<p>
<b>Second altered version: "Frank Marshall Davis' photos appeared in <u>many titles</u> of men's magazines throughout the 1960's."</b>
<p>
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: <b><u>he's lying again</u>.</b> 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 <i>change</i> 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.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-77702057017549218492012-10-18T19:59:00.000-04:002012-10-18T19:59:11.235-04:00Quoted in the Orlando SentinelI was contacted earlier this week by a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, for a story on the bulk mailings of <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i>. The article is now online:
<p>
<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/os-obama-dvd-voters-20121018,0,5024553.story">Anti-Obama DVD floods local mailboxes</a>
<p>
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:
<blockquote>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.
<p>
"Typical conspiracist nonsense," he said.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-43039405335557796712012-10-15T07:16:00.000-04:002012-10-16T07:42:22.527-04:00Joel Gilbert vs. The Complete ExotiqueI 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.
<p>
There were some people who still doubted that Gilbert's pictures actually did appear in 1958. And so, I procured a copy of <i>The Complete Exotique</i>, 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.
<p>
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.
<p>
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 <u>advertisement</u> in order to show the false claims he's making.
<p>
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:
<p>
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YVYofNIYPaA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-74601478350951960822012-10-06T08:16:00.001-04:002012-10-06T10:06:09.646-04:00Joel Gilbert Really Is Lying To You<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh98zjmD6DN86GbkDPp4rNA_fZ6BZN0OAKySqDEiJr2jL4ginfyZwfgS5ET0tfZFHS_tJ5lvoTIZehDff1j_v8JGqr1kRVLA6-W9fou6amGY7tVlO7XzGfotpd07d7Bv0s0vH6_53Av-a7g/s1600/JoelGilbertLying.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="160" width="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh98zjmD6DN86GbkDPp4rNA_fZ6BZN0OAKySqDEiJr2jL4ginfyZwfgS5ET0tfZFHS_tJ5lvoTIZehDff1j_v8JGqr1kRVLA6-W9fou6amGY7tVlO7XzGfotpd07d7Bv0s0vH6_53Av-a7g/s200/JoelGilbertLying.gif" /></a></div>
<i>(Title and graphic <a href="http://www.paulreallyisdead.com/">inspired by Joel Gilbert</a>)</i>
<p>
At the end of <a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/10/fever-dreams-from-my-real-father-1-nude.html">my last post</a>, 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.
<p>
In Part 5 of my series, <a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/10/fever-dreams-from-my-real-father-5-joel.html">"Joel Gilbert's Phantom Evidence"</a>, I discussed a number of claims that don't actually appear in <I>Dreams From My Real Father</i>, but which Joel Gilbert has taken to repeating in interviews.
<p>
For instance, <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/25919910">on October 4</a>, 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):
<blockquote><b>Gilbert:</b> "We do have photos of them together in various compromising positions, we did cover things up to be respectful."</blockquote>
Now if you've watched <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i>, you know that the movie contains precisely ZERO photos of Ann and Frank <u>"together"</u>. 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.
<p>
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.
<p>
But that's not the biggest lie that Gilbert has invented for interviews and the radio. Here is how <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/was-communist-mentor-intimate-with-obamas-mother/">WND's Jerome Corsi describes Joel Gilbert's Hawaiian 'investigation'</a>:
<blockquote>Before releasing a small sample of the pin-up photographs he claims shows a nude Ann Dunham posing for Davis, Gilbert undertook extensive research.
<p>
He traveled to Hawaii to inspect and photograph the Honolulu address that the FBI file documents as Davis’ residence beginning in 1956...
<p>
“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.”
<p>
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.”
<p>
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.
<p>
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.
<p>
“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.”
<p>
Gilbert took measurements of the windows and the floor at various angles, as well as video footage and still photographs of the living room.</blockquote>
<p>
Also, <a href="http://youtu.be/R0s3LnT6CwQ?t=9m22s">here is Gilbert on Alex Jones</a>:<blockquote>"I actually went to the house in Hawaii...and we took the measurements and found that that <u>was</u> the house, and the photos are traced to Davis."</blockquote>
And I'm not about to list all the numerous times Gilbert has repeated this in his nine appearances on Peter Boyles' show. <a href="http://www.khow.com/cc-common/podcast/single_page.html?podcast=fullshow_boyles">Listen for yourself</a> if you're interested.
<p>
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.
<p>
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.
<p>
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.
<p>
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 <u>not</u> taken inside the house at 2994 Kalihi.
<p>
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.
<p>
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 <u>not</u> a room inside the house at 2994 Kalihi Street.
<p>
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.
<p>
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.
<p>
Now I'm sure some people will read this post and respond with "Why doesn't Jack show pictures <i>proving</i> his house doesn't match the photos?" Several reasons:
<p>
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.<br>
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.<br>
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 <i>you</i> would publish a bunch of photos of the inside of your house, tagged with <i>your</i> street address.<br>
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 <i>and again <b>and again</b></i>, 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.
<p>
(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.)
<p>
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 <i>wrong</i>. 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.
<p>
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.
<p>
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.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-68649417048542925782012-10-05T19:25:00.001-04:002012-10-05T19:31:10.114-04:00Bullspotting: Finding Facts in the Age of MisinformationA commenter below writes:
<p>
<blockquote>I liked this post so much I ordered your book from amazon.ca. I am in awe.</blockquote>
Indeed, if you notice the ad in the sidebar, I have a book that's due to be released by Prometheus Books in a little under two weeks from now. As the title might suggest, it's something of a field guide for skepticism and critical thinking. And yes, I do utilize Birtherism as an illustration on several occasions.
<p>
<center><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=suspensiono0e-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=1616146346" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe></center>
<p>
It's my first book, and it actually grew out of an initial proposal that was Birther-centric. Given the evolution of this project, it remains my hope to write another book about the strange history of Birtherism and other Obama-related conspiracy theories (if only to justify the time I've spent following them).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-53667961733803690262012-10-02T07:00:00.000-04:002012-10-02T09:10:00.409-04:00Fever Dreams From My Real Father #1: The Nude Photos DebunkedAt the center of Gilbert's theory that Frank Marshall Davis is Obama's father is a series of nude and fetish photographs. They were the focus of his <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMUlWbO1rhk">second promotional video for the DVD</a>. They're featured prominently on his website, and he consistently references them in radio interviews. Radio host Peter Boyles has called them the "Rosetta Stone" that will unlock Obama's secret past, and Alex Jones <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0s3LnT6CwQ">declared</a> "It's <u>her</u> in these photos."
<p>
The "her" to which Jones refers is Obama's mother Ann Dunham, who Gilbert claims is the woman depicted in these photos. Three of the photos were originally posted on the website of <a href="http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/10/naughty-obama-mamma.html">The Astute Bloggers</a> in October 2008, where it was claimed that they had been forwarded by a reader. Even though one photo plainly bore a watermark of "free-vintage-porn.com", some people were convinced that the photos were of Ann Dunham. Over time, the claim evolved so that it was Frank Marshall Davis who was said to have <i>taken</i> the photos as well (perhaps an unsurprising development, as The Astute Bloggers website was <i>also</i> responsible for starting the rumor that Frank was Obama's father).
<p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsQGByaahv6WLfVI2mmnjhPfxKP-EfYnvc10sq8T9153hfBG867nzRDpq6R2_MKBhYOUa_Orj2fZpAZDHWV93LxAglbMGm7VkexjpP0UA7tjx6O_Zynde7g0joFnAcOmwtuN7ZX3vRniMh/s1600/December1960.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="239" width="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsQGByaahv6WLfVI2mmnjhPfxKP-EfYnvc10sq8T9153hfBG867nzRDpq6R2_MKBhYOUa_Orj2fZpAZDHWV93LxAglbMGm7VkexjpP0UA7tjx6O_Zynde7g0joFnAcOmwtuN7ZX3vRniMh/s400/December1960.jpg" /></a></div>
Here's what the narrator of <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i> has to say on the matter:
<blockquote>"At some point, she agreed to pose. These photos were taken a few weeks before Christmas 1960, when Mom was about five weeks pregnant with me. There's no mistaking: this is MY mama."</blockquote>
Gilbert has further elaborated on the photos outside the film itself. In his <a href="
http://www.obamasrealfather.com/downloads/Director-Q-A.pdf">website Q&A</a>:
<blockquote>I also obtained seven indecent photos of Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, taken at Frank Marshall Davis’ house, suggesting an intimate connection between Dunham and Davis...
<p>
<b>What new revelations are in Dreams from My Real Father?</b><br>
First, I make the case that Barack Obama’s real father was Communist Frank Marshall Davis. Next, the relationship between Davis and Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, is illustrated with seven indecent photographs of Dunham, some including other women, taken at Frank Marshall Davis’ house in Honolulu.</blockquote>
On the <a href="http://www.obamasrealfather.com/breaking_news002/">'Breaking News' portion of his website</a>:
<blockquote>Racy photos of Barack Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, have recently surfaced in vintage fetish and bondage magazines. The photos, taken at Frank Marshall Davis' house in Honolulu, appeared in Bizarre Life, Exotique, Secret Pleasures, and Battling Babes.</blockquote>
And <a href="http://www.the-trades.com/article.php?id=13033">in interviews</a>:
<blockquote>But if you look at the many, many photos of Ann Dunham and the naked girl in the pictures -- especially you can see her teeth; she has some recessed teeth on the left side -- it's very obviously Ann Dunham.</blockquote>
<p>
Most people didn't take the photo claim very seriously, because the woman in the pictures doesn't really look all that much like Ann Dunham. Sure, she bears a passing resemblance, in the same sense that as a bespectacled young white guy, I bear a passing resemblance to Daniel Radcliffe. Frankly, the woman in the photos looks a lot more like <a href="http://retrocrush.com/babes/joancollins/10.jpg">Joan Collins</a> than Ann Dunham.
<p>
Since their original appearance in 2008, some have attempted to debunk the photos by identifying the model. This has proven fruitless, and unsurprisingly so; many mid-century nude and fetish models were nameless faces, anonymous to the world at large.
<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIXn1-7kKn89NZpO3_bxvU3_pzYDW7i-GFzsOUxKf8TV5Z9CoxNtthSSCU5YWzApUtcSjHysRvP5chUFK4XPB1CMaM7hUqMLV36pCkk4yEdQYSvbV2GOblwsGXpzkJpHTneGMvKsvjNEoq/s1600/GilbertScreenshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="285" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIXn1-7kKn89NZpO3_bxvU3_pzYDW7i-GFzsOUxKf8TV5Z9CoxNtthSSCU5YWzApUtcSjHysRvP5chUFK4XPB1CMaM7hUqMLV36pCkk4yEdQYSvbV2GOblwsGXpzkJpHTneGMvKsvjNEoq/s320/GilbertScreenshot.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
To his credit, Gilbert did somehow locate additional photos of the mystery woman he claims is Ann. And as noted above, he named several magazines where he claims they appeared. Both on his website and in <i>Dreams</i>, he shows the covers of six specific issues, and the website (on the right) flatly states "Frank Marshall Davis' photos of Ann Dunham appear in these vintage men's magazines." The magazines Gilbert shows are:
<p>
Exotique #2<br>
Exotique #4<br>
Exotique #6<br>
Exotique #14<br>
Secret Pleasures<br>
Battling Babes<br>
Bizarre Life #9
<p>
The last three magazines were published in 1958, 1957, and 1969, respectively. <i>Exotique</i> was published between 1955 and 1959.
<p>
Curiously, though, the pictures Gilbert shows appear in NONE of the issues he identifies. I consulted with the owner of a fansite for these magazines, who checked and confirmed that Gilbert's photos are nowhere to be seen in these issues. I personally reviewed copies of <a href="http://www.30sg.com/node/1579"><i>Exotique</i> #14</a>, <a href="http://www.30sg.com/content/361-battling-babes-bonus">Battling Babes</a> and <a href="http://www.30sg.com/content/434-secret-pleasures-exotique-photo-album-no-7-exotique-correspondence-digest-no-1"><i>Secret Pleasures</i></a>, and they included NO pictures of the mystery model.
<p>
What <i>Secret Pleasures</i> DID feature, on page 26, was this photo:
<p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgboSlx96m-J171n9v0dPVyeoMjQZQbxS7R8qrsT8LWK-fQsLVIu-8SvvG-LpIrznpi-zKi6lMERkD2AY_flty9LAu9hVAQ8Ns05aDkbEKIFEgEDpA_YBXCYuvHKFToxuQAqVAAj-mFj-49/s1600/SP-1958-Photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="200" width="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgboSlx96m-J171n9v0dPVyeoMjQZQbxS7R8qrsT8LWK-fQsLVIu-8SvvG-LpIrznpi-zKi6lMERkD2AY_flty9LAu9hVAQ8Ns05aDkbEKIFEgEDpA_YBXCYuvHKFToxuQAqVAAj-mFj-49/s200/SP-1958-Photo.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
Who is the woman? I have no idea. But look at the chair she's seated on. At the pillow in the chair. At the window behind her. At the record player to her right, and the records peeking out below her leg. At the cabinet behind her, and at the floor beneath her. Look familiar?
<p>
<center>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCDLcCaxTEtjODE02vKIaVb-ll2n4HGxSyMbFnXUedNAARigCzOUhgkc3ZxQCYHryMouXIbNUq5w2jIvVdi0gnA88sYFYlFw_wD2xernpeFWX-yd4rw_0lc3Mk-oLEFp55FGRh8UjpIcDJ/s1600/AnnPhotoChairClean.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="200" width="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCDLcCaxTEtjODE02vKIaVb-ll2n4HGxSyMbFnXUedNAARigCzOUhgkc3ZxQCYHryMouXIbNUq5w2jIvVdi0gnA88sYFYlFw_wD2xernpeFWX-yd4rw_0lc3Mk-oLEFp55FGRh8UjpIcDJ/s200/AnnPhotoChairClean.jpg" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsQlxzGYozin9u41QtQoeBLDG3hvNh92-mDlKcbUi4zE4dQdEfNd8-abJe9eD9IacAmvYfi8anBh-OURnnGqD4JJfyJDZ8m-_8d1GAEyW5ENjnWCHlbznrjnBXfCOPPGvrSZzv9H3B5zrG/s1600/CabinetScreenshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="200" width="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsQlxzGYozin9u41QtQoeBLDG3hvNh92-mDlKcbUi4zE4dQdEfNd8-abJe9eD9IacAmvYfi8anBh-OURnnGqD4JJfyJDZ8m-_8d1GAEyW5ENjnWCHlbznrjnBXfCOPPGvrSZzv9H3B5zrG/s200/CabinetScreenshot.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>
That's right, it's <i>the exact same setting</i> as the 'Ann' photos. Published in a 1958 men's magazine. And it's not the only one. From <a href=""><i>Exotique</i> #25</a>, pages 7 and 40, respectively:
<p>
<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE7KsqgUVgDK626ctx0W4qlmANRyix6Q_8wVAjQJBK-YBiBH8BAoD4bRMR1hJML6Ouj3qNA7-jqKSgtjfzwmcFLXP2bPMXjm8KX0SB3vrcUajptfHEiv8yV0By0bd1BlMUssv6qx6iW8bl/s1600/EXOTIQUE-25-Photo1.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" height="200" width="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE7KsqgUVgDK626ctx0W4qlmANRyix6Q_8wVAjQJBK-YBiBH8BAoD4bRMR1hJML6Ouj3qNA7-jqKSgtjfzwmcFLXP2bPMXjm8KX0SB3vrcUajptfHEiv8yV0By0bd1BlMUssv6qx6iW8bl/s200/EXOTIQUE-25-Photo1.jpg" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWZAzafPiP4wD8vxFKdI6MiNG0YMBqWfF3gdDyTtJ6IlW1yhUw1phhaHZ9xbsLwHKhxRer6Is9o29elHkNq3BopT0jZrupWLzWrNxdHzvtL_JKW8Pykr9VyT_T2WCM8X1SBP9as6v0WmI/s1600/EXOTIQUE-25-Photo2.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" height="200" width="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWZAzafPiP4wD8vxFKdI6MiNG0YMBqWfF3gdDyTtJ6IlW1yhUw1phhaHZ9xbsLwHKhxRer6Is9o29elHkNq3BopT0jZrupWLzWrNxdHzvtL_JKW8Pykr9VyT_T2WCM8X1SBP9as6v0WmI/s200/EXOTIQUE-25-Photo2.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>Again, does that setting look familiar? Same couch, same floor, same picture on the wall, even the same random pillow arrangement on top of the couch <a href="http://www.the-trades.com/pictures/D/DreamsRealFatherDunhamNude.jpg">as seen in other photos in Gilbert's videos</a>. The woman is even wearing the same spiked-ball earrings as Gilbert's 'Ann'. Who is she? I don't know, but <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu2_LEVMCTQ24m3ih8UUBMgytUaguXpYNqgaL4AA-XpdDD8upNzo6KKoYC4R_BdguFp-yanMv4P0bLEB5Nxf3g8wNdcmuwH8jbIXqWdk7SpGj3qZ-UJnRCXI_-g5fCY4VE2h5ePZff4nMS/s1600/OtherWoman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="">she looks an awful lot like the woman who appears with Gilbert's 'Ann'</a> in several photos in his movie.
<p>
Now granted, these photos alone don't prove that the mystery model <u>couldn't</u> be Ann. Perhaps Davis took these in 1958, and he didn't change the arrangement of his room for two years. That's odd, and hardly the most compelling explanation, but it's not impossible. (Even though Gilbert himself would likely concede that these are from the same photoshoot.)
<p>
Unfortunately for Gilbert, that's not all. Further up this post, there's a screenshot of Gilbert's own website, with a video still that shows the woman he claims is 'Ann' sitting on a couch, pulling a black opera glove onto her left arm. That image appears in Gilbert's <i>Dreams</i> and in his promotional videos as well, but he's never released a full-size copy of that photo.
<p>
I found one, however:
<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR-GM37s4Web2NQDdzq6osg7e-qgLoxa_hquzoUKpcn65j8DBhmbZZC6tF0w9-Jg5TnLVYBuhQYvmHdGgIucaN8nsNDUoOzgV6ojNWS-dwX-PaVXrP1UBmACzHEFQF776Unlr329ox0zFT/s1600/gloves-exotique099.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR-GM37s4Web2NQDdzq6osg7e-qgLoxa_hquzoUKpcn65j8DBhmbZZC6tF0w9-Jg5TnLVYBuhQYvmHdGgIucaN8nsNDUoOzgV6ojNWS-dwX-PaVXrP1UBmACzHEFQF776Unlr329ox0zFT/s320/gloves-exotique099.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
This picture appeared in <i>Exotique</i> #23, on page 22. <u>In 1958</u>. When Ann Dunham was only 15 years old. Two years before Ann Dunham even <i><b>moved</b></i> to Hawaii.
<p>
It can also be found reprinted in volume 2 of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3822874361/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=3822874361&linkCode=as2&tag=suspensiono0e-20">3-volume Exotique hardcover collection</a>.
<p>
We may never know who the mystery model is. But the Dunham family didn't move to Hawaii until the summer of 1960. Unless Ann Dunham had access to a time machine in the 1960s, <u>it simply cannot be her</u>.
<p>
Moreover, <u><b>Joel Gilbert knows this</b></u>. He found that opera glove photo; it was not circulating the web as an 'Ann' photo prior to his videos. He knows it came from <i>Exotique</i>, a magazine that ceased publication in 1959. <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/was-communist-mentor-intimate-with-obamas-mother/">From WND</a>: "Gilbert found that several of the photos in the collection appeared in a magazine called <i>Exotique</i>, published by pin-up photographer Leonard Burtman, who worked in New York City."
<p>
Thus he knows this picture was published two years before Ann first stepped foot in Hawaii, years before she could have met Frank Marshall Davis. And yet he explicitly claims, multiple times, that the photo was TAKEN at Christmastime 1960. This is not a lie of ignorance or mistake; it is a lie of pure, fully-informed malice.
<p>
And that's the BEST-case scenario for Gilbert. Gilbert knows that Ann was born in 1942, and he knows he found these pictures in 1958 magazines. If Gilbert truly believes that these ARE somehow pictures of a 15-year-old Ann, then he's been distributing hundreds of thousands of DVDs <i>featuring nude and erotic pictures of someone <b>he believes</b> to be an underage girl</i>.
<p>
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gilbert has thus far refused to disclose the actual sources of the erotic photos he put in his videos. He identified six issues, none of which checked out, and five of which contradict his 1960 date anyway. As shown above, to disclose the <i>true</i> issues would be to destroy his own claim that the photos are of Ann, and to let his audience know that he's lying to them. And so he refuses to cite his sources, even when they're just magazine issue numbers.
<p>
So there you have it. The people who've said 'Frank Davis took naked pictures of Stanley Ann Dunham in December of 1960' are provably wrong. The woman they claim is Ann was having her photographs from this very shoot <i>published</i> at least as early as 1958. When Ann was a 15-year-old in Washington, years before she ever stepped foot on Hawaii or could have conceivably even <i>met</i> Frank Marshall Davis. Joel Gilbert has unnecessarily obscured the actual publication dates of the pictures he found, because he knows those simple facts will prove to everyone that he's lying about them being taken in 1960, and lying about Frank Marshall Davis taking them of Ann, and lying about them being evidence of an intimate relationship between Frank and Ann.
<p>
As I wrote in my first post in this series, "I can't promise that I'll convince everyone that Joel Gilbert is a charlatan and his film is a joke, but I think by this time next week, anyone who continues to trust Gilbert has some depressingly low standards for what they'll believe." I'm sure some people will still prefer to believe in him and his photos, and nothing will convince them otherwise. To them, I can only say this: just as Joel Gilbert has known for months, you now know that his photos were being published in 1958. Possibly even earlier. So if you still want to believe that the woman in those photos is Ann Dunham, that means you also have to believe that the woman in those photos is no more than 15 years old. Keep that in mind as you talk about them, and post them online, and save them on your computer. I know you're not doing anything illegal or morally disgusting (because it's not Ann), but what are you telling yourselves?
<p>
Finally, even though I've reached #1 in this series and I think I've solidly proven my case, I had two more research developments on Monday that I'll be typing up in the next few days. So be sure to keep an eye out for those to come.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com135tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-62022211367079298582012-10-01T23:00:00.000-04:002012-10-01T23:00:06.844-04:00Fever Dreams From My Real Father #2: "Anne" vs. Ann<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj684T-nIVVxq6Funj9rOFvRrylhSEpdm_BwXpX6t4K3no6RvpC3LK5gBAVKdPXjnzpl2BBFSVa1MRfHwb4Q02Y2SliFkfv3EcAClc7K8AZvg39ucl5tmZaGAu_u79ZGj9_UpfsGWnjnErW/s1600/AnneSexRebel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="283" width="379" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj684T-nIVVxq6Funj9rOFvRrylhSEpdm_BwXpX6t4K3no6RvpC3LK5gBAVKdPXjnzpl2BBFSVa1MRfHwb4Q02Y2SliFkfv3EcAClc7K8AZvg39ucl5tmZaGAu_u79ZGj9_UpfsGWnjnErW/s400/AnneSexRebel.jpg" /></a></div>
The following scene begins at approximately 22:30 in <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i>:
<p>
<blockquote><b>"In <i>Sex Rebel Black</i>, I think he [Frank Marshall Davis] memorialized the encounters with my [Obama's] mom.
<p>
<i>"Anne came up many times the next several weeks.<br>
She obtained a course in practical sex from experienced and considerate practitioners.<br>
I think we did her a favour, although the pleasure was mutual.<br>
I’m not one to go in for Lolitas. Usually I'd rather not bed a babe under 20.<br>
But there are exceptions. I didn't want to disappoint the trusting child.</i>"</b></blockquote>
<p>
Joel Gilbert has repeated this claim in interviews, both on the radio and in <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/04/film-presidents-father-not-barack-obama/">an April 2012 article by Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily</a>:
<p>
<blockquote>Davis also penned a scurrilous, autobiographical sex novel, titled “Sex Rebel: Black,” in which he detailed an illicit sexual relationship with an underage woman named “Anne.” Gilbert believes the name was a thin disguise for Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.</blockquote>
<p>
It should not surprise the reader at this point that Gilbert is being <i>incredibly</i> disingenuous in this claim, in multiple respects. It is critical here to note that immediately prior to the film scene quoted above, Gilbert shows and even highlights in yellow portions of actual scanned pages from <i>Sex Rebel Black</i>. This is not merely second-hand rumor that he is repeating uncritically; he has seen and read the relevant material from <i>Sex Rebel Black</i>, and knows full-well what he's misrepresenting.
<p>
To begin with, although the screenshot above shows how the movie seems to depict a single, uninterrupted quote from the book, that is not at all the case. The quoted words from <a href="http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Frank_Marshall_Davis%27_Sex_Rebel:_Black,_1968"><i>Sex Rebel Black</i></a> that are seen and spoken by the narrator are taken from two different parts of Chapter Seven, the chapter that discusses "Anne." The first two sentences are taken from page 76; the latter sentences from page 72:
<p>
This is what appears on page 76, with the words quoted by Gilbert bolded:
<blockquote><b>Anne came up many times the next several weeks</b>, her aunt thinking she was in good hands. Actually, she was. <b>She obtained a course in practical sex from experienced and considerate practitioners</b> rather than from ignorant, insensitive neophytes. Neither of us would have thought of voluntarily breaking her in at thirteen, but she was already on the way toward leading an active sex life.</blockquote>
Notice how Gilbert cuts out the latter half of the first sentence, which refers to Anne's "aunt," and the words that follow the second, including her stated age of "thirteen," and thus would be obviously inconsistent with the theory he's presenting.
<p>
Then, from <i>four pages earlier</i>, on page 72, the rest of Gilbert's blockquote:
<blockquote>I think we did her a favour, although the pleasure was mutual.
I’m not one to go in for Lolitas. Usually I'd rather not bed a babe under 20. But there are exceptions. I didn't want to disappoint the trusting child.</blockquote>
That is merely how Gilbert has misrepresented the very text he's put onscreen. Does his theory that "Anne" is actually Ann Dunham hold any water? Are "Anne" and Ann at all similar? Not in the slightest.
<p>
Davis actually describes "Anne" in considerable detail in Chapter Seven, and in <i>every single respect</i> she is wholly unlike Ann Dunham. Moreover every contextual detail about the setting makes it impossible that "Anne" could be Ann Dunham. To wit:
<ul><li>"Anne" is only thirteen years old. When Ann Dunham was thirteen, she had just moved to Seattle from Kansas. (p. 71)</li>
<li>The setting for the entire encounter is in Davis' upstairs "apartment" in Chicago. Not in his house in Hawaii, as Gilbert's film suggests. (p. 73)</li>
<li>"Anne" is "a niece of Dad's former landlady," and she is said to be living with her aunt in Davis' apartment building. (p. 71)</li>
<li>"Anne" is from Jamaica. (p. 72, 78)</li>
<li>"Anne" is said to have a mixed racial heritage, consisting of ""Chinese, English, Jew and West Indian Negro." Her appearance is described as follows: "Her hair - long, thin, shiny black and straight - reached her waist. Her smooth young skin was the rich color of antique gold." (pp. 72-73)</li>
<li>And perhaps most significantly, the entire chapter is set in 1939 or 1940, <b><i>at least two years before Ann Dunham was even born.</i></b></ul>
If that wasn't enough, Davis further undermines Gilbert's theory on page 75, where he acknowledges that he and "Anne" <i>never actually completed any act of sexual intercourse</i>. Were Davis to have fathered a child with "Anne," it would have been an immaculate conception.
<p>
Davis describes what happened on "Anne" on page 78, in the final paragraphs of Chapter Seven, and again it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the life of Ann Dunham:
<blockquote>The clouds of World War II hovered and Anne's aunt had already announced she would be returned to her family in Jamaica while transportation was still possible. She left shortly after the run-in with Doris.
<p>
Later I learned that soon after reaching home she was knocked up by a Chinese merchant who paid her several thousand dollars to keep quiet. After V-J day in 1945 she returned to the U.S....she became engaged several times in California and Chicago only to have her fiances back out...
<p>
I saw her once on a crowded elevated train in 1947, but had no opportunity for more than a hurried hello. She smiled warmly and returned my greeting. Maybe it was best that I didn't talk with her; as stunning and ripe as she looked at twenty-one I would have tried to resume where we left off a few years before. I have never seen her since, nor have I ever bedded another nymphet.</blockquote>
In sum, absolutely <i>nothing</i> about "Anne" resembles Ann Dunham, except the pronunciation of their first names. When Ann Dunham first moved to Hawaii in 1960, she was a seventeen-year-old white girl from Kansas who lived with her parents in a house several miles from Davis; whereas "Anne" was a thirteen-year old mixed-race girl from Jamaica who lived in a Chicago apartment with her aunt prior to World War II, who was impregnated by a Chinese merchant in Jamaica, and who he never saw again after 1947. If Davis were writing about Ann Dunham, it would mean that he changed absolutely every aspect of the setting for his encounter with her, as well as every personal detail about Ann <u>except her name</u>.
<p>
More importantly, Gilbert knows every bit of this. His film actually shows pictures of pages 71 through 73, carefully cropped so as not to share any of the above-cited inconsistencies. The 'quote' he puts onscreen and has read aloud by his narrator is cobbled together in such a way that shows he's not only read the chapter, but that he knows what words (i.e., "her aunt") to leave out. He is fully aware how implausible his theory is, but he not only continues to repeat it, but he actively ignored and obscured the overwhelming evidence that contradicts it.
<p>
Finally, it is worth noting that Gilbert's claims regarding the "Anne" of Chapter Seven are wholly inconsistent with Gilbert's claims regarding the nude photos he says were taken of Dunham by Davis. Note how even in Gilbert's truncated quote above, Frank still refers to "we" and "practitioners," whereas in the movie, Gilbert has Frank engaging in a one-on-one affair that he wants to hide from his wife. Once again, Gilbert's penchant for dishonesty results in inconsistent stories. In any case, those nude photo claims will be annihilated for good in the final installment of this series. If you haven't been convinced yet of Gilbert's rampant dishonesty and disingenuousness, you will be.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-70998557747432280182012-10-01T21:00:00.000-04:002012-10-01T21:19:50.593-04:00Fever Dreams From My Real Father #3: Factual FailingsNo matter how thoroughly I puncture Gilbert's credibility, I'm sure there will be some people who will respond with "But you didn't disprove <i>every single thing in the movie</i>," as if it were necessary to do an item-by-item refutation of every assertion in an hour-and-a-half long movie.
<p>
Sorry, but I'm not doing that. For one, that's more trouble than it's worth. For another, <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i> is so devoid of anything resembling substantive evidence that 90% of the itemized rebuttals would consist of me saying "Gilbert provided absolutely no support for this statement; meanwhile, the available evidence says..."
<p>
Or to put it another way, factchecking spin and misrepresentations can be useful. But <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i> is mostly just fiction, and factchecking fiction is a waste of time.
<p>
And yet there are still instances where Gilbert does make some easily fact-checkable statements...and he's easily proven wrong. Let's look at several.
<p>
First, during the "Gramps was a CIA operative" portion of the film, the 'Obama' narrator says:
<blockquote>"Arriving in Honolulu from Kenya in August of 1959 was Barack Hussein Obama...He was welcomed at Hickham Air Force Base by none other than my grandfather, in a traditional Hawaiian ceremony."</blockquote>
<p>
This photo accompanying that line is this:
<p>
<center><img src="http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/cbsnews/2007/02/09/image2455630.jpg"></center>
<p>
But that photo's not from 1959, and it's not from a welcome ceremony. (It's also far from certain that the white man is Stanley Dunham.) No, that photo first appeared online at <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-18560_162-2455502-5.html">CBSnews.com</a> in 2008, where it's explained "Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., center, is shown wearing floral leis on his graduation day at the University of Hawaii in the early 1960s."
<p>
And if Gilbert thinks CBS was wrong, then he still provides absolutely nothing to support that, or to support his assertion that it's from 1959. More likely, Gilbert simply saw where the photo's been passed around by Birthers claiming it's a welcome party (this erroneous claim appeared in the <a href="http://www.infowars.com/bombshell-barack-obama-conclusively-outed-as-cia-creation/">Wayne Madsen article</a> that Gilbert has previously pulled from), and didn't bother to check the facts.
<p>
Second, as mentioned in Part 4:
<blockquote>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.
<p>
“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.”</blockquote>
There's only one window visible in the pin-up photos. And it has a bottom sill that's roughly two feet off the ground, not "low to the floorboards." Gilbert can't even describe the pin-up photos correctly.
<p>
And the notion that tall and narrow windows are "a design unique to English Tudor style houses"? Gilbert has apparently been in very few apartment buildings.
<p>
Third, also as discussed in Part 4:
<blockquote>As illustrated in his documentary, Gilbert found a newspaper photograph of Davis sitting on a couch in his living room that appears to be an exact match for the couch seen in the pin-up photographs.</blockquote>
The film shows this newspaper photograph. It shows Davis sitting on a couch that has separate cushions along the back. The couch in the pin-up photos does NOT have separate cushions; it merely has a raised seam. You can't even see the whole couch, but just the minimal portion we do see shows that it's not the same couch.
<p>
<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRy__-QThULdCys0BmMIgPv2ImGKl2mPlTHERcWY4HZonvOQggZWkN8Zw7pOJJNc13Uxc-QJS5dF1D1Z7gApbOq8cRgMN4yS5ompXBTs_ZnHYYFmcnhkfprSYLs2FbORWYpMs9nEzPWN5t/s1600/FrankCouch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="179" width="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRy__-QThULdCys0BmMIgPv2ImGKl2mPlTHERcWY4HZonvOQggZWkN8Zw7pOJJNc13Uxc-QJS5dF1D1Z7gApbOq8cRgMN4yS5ompXBTs_ZnHYYFmcnhkfprSYLs2FbORWYpMs9nEzPWN5t/s400/FrankCouch.jpg" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQke2x4N0U6hq8ui3ELnS6xsux-iYLYx9AXNGbwy1XimTDHT8M5NjuZ0q6-ACTWXMQx_Yh4i7vCw0y1GjKu8MZT-l1XPHBxdFqHFpTWDy8NZCWto4_9kg8GI0Dozf8kxLMUpSoYUdlqzfr/s1600/AnnCouch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="257" width="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQke2x4N0U6hq8ui3ELnS6xsux-iYLYx9AXNGbwy1XimTDHT8M5NjuZ0q6-ACTWXMQx_Yh4i7vCw0y1GjKu8MZT-l1XPHBxdFqHFpTWDy8NZCWto4_9kg8GI0Dozf8kxLMUpSoYUdlqzfr/s400/AnnCouch.jpg" /></a>
</center>
<p>
Fourth, Gilbert dabbles in Birtherism in the film:
<blockquote>On August 4, 1961, a midwife was called to the house. A few days later, Gramps phoned in my birth to the Hawaii Department of Health, as was the norm for home births...as agreed, he declared the father 'Unknown.'</blockquote>
So if Gramps told the DoH that the father was "Unknown" just a few days after August 4, then that creates a real mystery as to why the newspaper announcements on August 13 and 14 declared that a son was born on August 4 to "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama."
<p>
Gilbert, of course, resolves this conflict with one of the typical conspiracist tricks: by completely ignoring that the newspaper announcements exist.
<p>
Fifth, from later in the film:
<blockquote>Thomas Ayers had arranged a job at the firm for Bernardine Dohrn, where she worked with Michelle Robinson. They were friends. When Bill's dad got me a summer intern position at Sidley Austin, Bernardine told me Michelle might be a good match...When I married her a few years later, I married my father. I called her my "bitter half."</blockquote>
<p>
It's odd that Bernardine could introduce Obama to Michelle at work, since Obama's internship was in the summer of 1989 and Bernardine had stopped working at Sidley Austin in 1988.
<p>
Also odd: the implicit suggestion that after <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/michelle-malkins-crusade-against-the-bitter-half-michelle-obama-hits-hannity/">Michelle Malkin</a> started a one-woman habit of referring to Michelle as Obama's "bitter half" in 2008, Obama went back in time and started using that negative term himself. (And lest this is defended as a joke, remember the Gilbert quote from my first post, where he says the film is about telling the truth, not entertainment.)
<p>
Sixth, in the course of talking about Obama's role in voter registration efforts in Chicago:
<blockquote>Later, eight of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were registered under Motor Voter.</blockquote>
This is a common claim among 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and there is no shortage of websites that repeat it, but it has no actual basis in fact. This rumor <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100774960">can be traced back</a> to the (incorrect) claim that the hijackers may have been <u>able</u> to register to vote; but there's no evidence that any of them actually <U>were</u>. And in fact, they weren't eligible to register at all; the original rumor resulted from a misunderstanding of the law. For a guy who's (rightfully) <a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/09/joel-gilberts-dreams-from-my-real-father.html">dismissive of 9/11 Trutherism</a>, here Gilbert is just regurgitating one of the Truthers' own cherished myths.
<p>
And finally, about seven minutes from the end of the film, there's a montage with this quote from an Obama speech playing over it:
<blockquote>"There are millions of working families in this country who are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent meal. The free market, it doesn't work. It has never worked."</blockquote>
It sounds like a single, uninterrupted quote. And Gilbert's edited the video in such a way that even makes it <b>look</b> like a single, uninterrupted quote.
<p>
But it's not. Rather, it's cobbled together from no fewer than three different portions of <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2011/12/06/president-obama-speaks-economy#transcript">Obama's speech</a>. They're not even in the same order. The first sentence is from the 23:23 minute mark in the linked video. The three words "The free market" are from 11:00. And "it doesn't work. It has never worked" is from 16:18.
<p>
Yes, Gilbert actually splices the <u>subject</u> of one sentence onto the <u>predicate</u> of another. Then he follows *that* with a line from 20:50, and finishes with a sentence taken from 38:18. It's a Frankenstein quotation, stitched together from five disparate parts of a speech, but with the seams hidden by visual cutaways to unrelated images.
<p>
This, of course, is just a tiny sampling of the myriad falsehoods that are liberally sprinkled through <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i>. Gilbert doesn't merely relate imaginary stories or cite to unproduced evidence, but he also gets the facts wrong. A lot.
<p>
And as will be discussed tomorrow, there's nowhere that Gilbert's falsehoods are more blatant than at the very heart of his thesis.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-40184543332968526642012-10-01T17:05:00.000-04:002012-10-01T17:07:04.681-04:00Fever Dreams From My Real Father #4: Family PortraitsOne of pieces of 'evidence' that Gilbert features most prominently, and which has been part of the "Davis is Obama's secret daddy" claims for <a href="http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/09/was-communist-frank-marshall-davis.html">over four years</a>, is that the two men supposedly look alike.
<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://blackquillandink.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/obama-and-frank-marshall-davis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="243" width="397" src="http://blackquillandink.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/obama-and-frank-marshall-davis.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
Most photo comparisons of Obama and Davis involve pictures where the two men are posed similarly; when they're not, you get results like the one seen above. I, and I daresay most people, don't see any greater resemblance between the two men than would be present between *any* two random African American men. (The absurd 'Malcolm X as father' claim at least has the benefit of the two men looking <i>slightly</i> similar.)
<p>
Still, if someone is primed to see a resemblance, I don't really feel like wasting words trying to convince them otherwise, any more than I'd be interested in debating a viewer of Gilbert's <i>Paul McCartney Really Is Dead</i> movie that the secret messages they hear in backwards lyrics are just <a href="http://www.skepdic.com/pareidol.html">pareidolia</a>.
<p>
For instance, does Obama look that much more like Frank Marshall Davis than he does, say, another famous Davis?
<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92RQAb6qEYJsjqS4zDXd-3Zf2aFq1Cwqd0iRlElaPmPKNTZAvHXBiFIhmuALl0Xfor3vHfEUbqPKsFq-zybM-zkOrToJm-p2TwtY67hu_jJWzM-31bVrbd3rwhola-ceuIAbg9_vU93tb/s1600/ObamaDavis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="213" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92RQAb6qEYJsjqS4zDXd-3Zf2aFq1Cwqd0iRlElaPmPKNTZAvHXBiFIhmuALl0Xfor3vHfEUbqPKsFq-zybM-zkOrToJm-p2TwtY67hu_jJWzM-31bVrbd3rwhola-ceuIAbg9_vU93tb/s320/ObamaDavis.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
Still, maybe even the true believers can consider this: Frank Marshall Davis and Barack Obama Sr. each had other children. More to the point, each had a mixed-race son named Mark. Mark Davis was the son of Frank Marshall Davis and his second wife, Helen Canfield. Mark Ndesandjo was the son of Barack Obama Sr. and his wife Ruth Ndesandjo. Below is a picture of Obama with the two Marks:
<p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVA9CfgkXdQ4zfgSwkaqp3zgjWHUYGRyvZpLpoffaRmeBEJ62Z84jCKHrq9IoQ0PNE95g8LtVw6yRdiukPlNKE0H_2Btf79t95D483ut4hPBsM9ZxIJLakgaiE9MGtSHAU-F2GbQeCcuTK/s1600/ObamaMarks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="151" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVA9CfgkXdQ4zfgSwkaqp3zgjWHUYGRyvZpLpoffaRmeBEJ62Z84jCKHrq9IoQ0PNE95g8LtVw6yRdiukPlNKE0H_2Btf79t95D483ut4hPBsM9ZxIJLakgaiE9MGtSHAU-F2GbQeCcuTK/s400/ObamaMarks.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
You can decide for yourself which Mark the President bears a stronger resemblance to, and who you think is more likely to be his half-brother.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-1038344064064009272012-10-01T09:44:00.001-04:002012-10-01T16:38:21.399-04:00Fever Dreams From My Real Father #5: Joel Gilbert's Phantom EvidenceJoel Gilbert wasn't interested in talking to me, but he's been more than happy to chat with people who aren't likely to challenge him. He's been the subject of several WND articles, he's made <a href="http://www.obamasrealfather.com/press/">multiple radio appearances</a> with folks like Alex Jones, and he's appeared on the <a href="http://www.khow.com/cc-common/podcast/single_page.html?podcast=fullshow_boyles">Peter Boyles Show</a> alone at least eight times.
<p>
And there's an odd feature that recurs in these interviews: Gilbert keeps citing evidence that he <i>says</i> he discovered, evidence that he <i>says</i> supports his theories, but it's evidence <u>that's not actually in his movie</u>.
<p>
For instance, when I called Peter Boyles' show and said that the nude pictures are not of Ann Dunham, Peter challenged me to explain why the floorboards match. My response: I haven't seen any evidence that they DO match. I've seen the wooden floor in the old black-and-white photos...but that's it. There are no comparison shots from Davis' house in the movie, or on Gilbert's website. Gilbert SAYS he took photos, and he SAYS that the photos match, but he hasn't actually PRODUCED any such photos for anyone else to independently look at and draw their own conclusions. And even though he claims on the radio that the photos he took are strong and compelling evidence, he hasn't provided any justification for why, if that's true, he hasn't shared those photos.
<p>
WND <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/letters-point-to-obamas-real-father/">says that</a> Gilbert has made "many research trips to Hawaii," and Gilbert has made repeated claims as to what he found on those supposed trips.
<p>
He's even produced a couple of things which, if you give him the benefit of the doubt, could have been procured on such a trip. Exciting things like <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/filmmaker-see-photos-of-obamas-real-siblings/">high school yearbook photos of Frank Marshall Davis' children</a> (who look nothing like Obama), and <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/letters-point-to-obamas-real-father/">a photo of a vice raid at the Negro Elks Club in 1952</a> (which occupied Davis' house before he moved there in 1956). In a video interview with Alex Jones, Gilbert showed viewers a picture he said he took...of the outside of Davis' house, taken from the street. Basically, stuff that has absolutely no bearing on his substantive claims about Obama's relationship with Frank Marshall Davis.
<p>
Meanwhile, Gilbert keeps referring to other evidence in interviews that he insists validates his theories. He certainly wants his radio listeners to think that he's discovered such proof. But strangely, THAT evidence is missing from his actual movie, omitted in favor of things like stock footage of airplanes taking off and landing.
<p>
<a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/was-communist-mentor-intimate-with-obamas-mother/">For instance</a>:
<blockquote>He traveled to Hawaii to inspect and photograph the Honolulu address that the FBI file documents as Davis’ residence beginning in 1956.
<p>
The current owner of the house gave Gilbert permission to enter, photograph and document the house.</blockquote>
Funny thing: <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i> contains precisely ZERO photographs taken by Gilbert inside the Davis residence. Not of the floors, or the windows, or the furniture, or even just the shape of the rooms.
<p>
Of course, that could be explained if the photographs wouldn't prove anything. So what does Gilbert <i>say</i> he found inside?
<blockquote>“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.”</blockquote>
The film never so much as <i>mentions</i> the subject of flooring. When I called the Peter Boyles Show last week, Mr. Boyles wanted me to explain how the floorboards "match." I pointed out that there's nothing to compare; the movie never shows any comparison photos of the floorboards to show that they DO match. I was being asked to explain a supposed similarity between photos that ARE on the internet, and phantom photos that Joel Gilbert has talked about but never produced.
<p>
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
<p>
And yet, no comparison pictures of the flooring appear in the film. Neither does the claim that matching flooring was discovered, or any pictures of this "original piece of plywood."
<p>
However, here Gilbert at least provides some vague description of the wood he says he saw...and it doesn't match what is seen in the black-and-white photos. The nude photos obviously don't show the boards' color or stain or varnish, but they do show that they're <i>boards</i>. Roughly four inches wide. Plywood, by contrast, comes in sheets; Gilbert even claims to have found a "complete original piece" of plywood, not boards.
<p>
(There's also the rather dubious notion that even after changes of ownership of the house, the same plywood sheets would still be hanging around after more than 50 years.)
<p>
<blockquote>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.
<p>
“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.”</blockquote>
1) Nowhere in the film does Gilbert claim that the windows match.<br>
2) If Gilbert took any photos of these windows to show they match, he didn't include them in the movie for some reason.<br>
3) His description of the windows in the pin-up photos isn't even accurate. Look at the pictures <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMUlWbO1rhk">in Gilbert's own video</a>. There's only one window visible, and its bottom sill is roughly two feet from the floor. Like with the plywood, when Gilbert actually deigns to provide even a minimal description of what he supposedly saw, his descriptions don't match what can be plainly seen in the old photos.
<p>
<blockquote>Gilbert took measurements of the windows and the floor at various angles, as well as video footage and still photographs of the living room.</blockquote>
The movie makes no reference to measurements of the windows or measurements of the floor, nor does it include any video or photographs of the house.
<p>
So in short, Gilbert claims he gained access to the Davis house at 2994 Kalihi Street, discovered and photographed all kinds of stuff inside the house that he says absolutely proves that the nude photos wer taken inside THAT house...and then he left ALL of that evidence out of his movie.
<p>
And that's not all: while he's been publishing 'Breaking News' follow-ups on his website about yearbook photos and 1952 vice raids, what has he NOT published? Any of this evidence he claims to have procured inside the house. He's claimed he took photographs, video, and measurements, and to date, he hasn't produced even a single photograph that he took inside that house.
<p>
There's another claim about the interior of the house that Gilbert <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0s3LnT6CwQ">made to Alex Jones</a>:
<blockquote>"Even the couch is an exact match to the couch that Frank Marshall Davis sat on in many photos."</blockquote>
<p>
"Many photos"? If Gilbert claims there are "many photos" of Davis sitting on this "exact" couch, where are they? Because they're certainly not in his movie. In the movie, Gilbert shows exactly <u>one</u> photo of Davis sitting on a couch. Given that it was taken the same month Davis first moved to Hawaii in 1948, and several years before he lived in the house in question, it's uncertain whether that was even HIS couch he's sitting on.
<p>
And more importantly: it's NOT an exact match. The couch in the 1948 photo plainly has separate cushions across the back, whereas the couch in the nude photos does not; it merely has a raised seam. Gilbert's one and only photo shows that they're not the same couch at all.
<p>
<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRy__-QThULdCys0BmMIgPv2ImGKl2mPlTHERcWY4HZonvOQggZWkN8Zw7pOJJNc13Uxc-QJS5dF1D1Z7gApbOq8cRgMN4yS5ompXBTs_ZnHYYFmcnhkfprSYLs2FbORWYpMs9nEzPWN5t/s1600/FrankCouch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="179" width="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRy__-QThULdCys0BmMIgPv2ImGKl2mPlTHERcWY4HZonvOQggZWkN8Zw7pOJJNc13Uxc-QJS5dF1D1Z7gApbOq8cRgMN4yS5ompXBTs_ZnHYYFmcnhkfprSYLs2FbORWYpMs9nEzPWN5t/s400/FrankCouch.jpg" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQke2x4N0U6hq8ui3ELnS6xsux-iYLYx9AXNGbwy1XimTDHT8M5NjuZ0q6-ACTWXMQx_Yh4i7vCw0y1GjKu8MZT-l1XPHBxdFqHFpTWDy8NZCWto4_9kg8GI0Dozf8kxLMUpSoYUdlqzfr/s1600/AnnCouch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="257" width="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQke2x4N0U6hq8ui3ELnS6xsux-iYLYx9AXNGbwy1XimTDHT8M5NjuZ0q6-ACTWXMQx_Yh4i7vCw0y1GjKu8MZT-l1XPHBxdFqHFpTWDy8NZCWto4_9kg8GI0Dozf8kxLMUpSoYUdlqzfr/s400/AnnCouch.jpg" /></a>
</center>
<p>
It's the same as with his claims about the floorboards and the window: when Gilbert provides any detail at all to support his claims that the photos match Davis' house, all he does is provide information that suggests they're actually DIFFERENT.
<p>
The interior of the house is also not the only area where Gilbert has cited phantom evidence. For instance, here's what the film says about Obama's birth:
<blockquote>On August 4, 1961, a midwife was called to the house. A few days later, Gramps phoned in my birth to the Hawaii Department of Health, as was the norm for home births...as agreed, he declared the father 'Unknown.'</blockquote>
While this amusingly conflicts with Birther fictions that Obama was born in Kenya, Gilbert still provides no evidence to support 1) a home birth, 2) a midwife, 3) a phoned-in registration, or 4) that the father was declared as "Unknown." In fact, the existence of two newspaper announcements from the following week for "Mr. and Mrs. Barack Obama" rather undercut the notion that the father was "Unknown."
<blockquote>Neighbors of Davis have said Obama began visiting Davis every week at his home from the time Obama was 10 years old.</blockquote>
What neighbors? Gilbert drops this tidbit, but never identifies the neighbors, or quotes what they had to say, or how they would know that a visiting 10-year-old was a young Obama. There's no evidence to support this testimony of these anonymous "neighbors," not on Gilbert's website and certainly not in his film.
<blockquote>“As Ann Dunham engaged in nefarious activities with Frank Marshall Davis, who was likely involved in pornography and prostitution, why would she bring 10 year-old Barry back from Indonesia and tell her father something to the effect of, ‘I’m going back to Indonesia, but please take young Barry to Frank’s house a few times a week,’” he said.</blockquote>
Gilbert loves to repeat the claim that Ann Dunham instructed her father to take her son to see Davis; he's stated this on virtually every appearance on the Peter Boyles Show. His supporting evidence for this private instruction from daughter to father? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It's indistinguishable from something that he simply made up. Also, as was pointed out previously, this instruction from daughter to grandfather is incompatible with Gilbert's thesis in the movie that Gramps was a CIA agent who wanted to <i>conceal</i> his daughter's relationship with Frank.
<p>
Speaking of Boyles' show, Gilbert dropped another evidence-less claim on <a href="http://www.khow.com/player/?station=KHOW-AM&program_name=podcast&program_id=fullshow_boyles.xml&mid=22476371">Boyles' September 26th broadcast</a>:
<blockquote>"There are written catalog numbers on the bottom of those photos. I have taken those to handwriting analysis folks and they have all agreed that it is highly likely that it's Frank. It's almost exactly."</blockquote>
Gilbert's movie was released three months ago, and I've listened to a lot of his interviews, and this was the first time I'd heard him cite evidence from "handwriting analysis folks." And of course, just like the neighbors, these are <u>anonymous</u> handwriting analysis folks. After all, Gilbert can't risk having someone like me follow up with them to see if he's telling the truth. Keeping his supposed experts anonymous provides the illusion of credibility, without even needing real people.
<p>
What makes this last bit so brazen is that <b>Gilbert has done this before</b>. Remember, in his introduction to <i>Paul McCartney Really Is Dead</i>, Gilbert tells his viewers that he had his mysterious tapes of 'George Harrison' tested by "three different forensic labs." And he <a href="http://www.classicbands.com/JoelGilbertInterview.html">told an interviewer</a> the same story about having the tapes forensically tested. That was obviously made-up, since Gilbert has retroactively declared his film a "spoof." Then it was anonymous and unaccountable "forensic experts"; now it's anonymous and unaccountable "handwriting analysis folks." But otherwise, it's Gilbert playing the same game with his audience.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-4656542435463842242012-09-30T15:13:00.000-04:002012-10-24T13:57:13.260-04:00Fever Dreams From My Real Father #6: The Omniscient Joel Gilbert<blockquote><b>Judge Snyder: Mr. Hutz we've been in here for four hours. Do you have any evidence at all?<br>
Lionel Hutz: Well, Your Honor, we've got plenty of hearsay and conjecture. Those are <i>kinds</i> of evidence.</b> <br>
- The Simpsons Episode 3F16, "The Day the Violence Died"</blockquote>
<p>
Joel Gilbert doesn't like to cite sources. <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i> makes many, many extraordinary claims, but provides relatively little in terms of evidence or sources to support those claims.
<p>
In fact, so much of his movie is mired in rumor and conjecture, where Gilbert simply tells stories that are radically different than what's been previously published about Obama, that he provides relatively few significant facts to check. There are no sources indexed at the end of the film, or on his website. And the narration isn't citing source material. There are a few specific bits of evidence scattered throughout the film, mostly mundane historical dates that just establish the settings for the elaborate fictions Gilbert creates in them. The overwhelming amount of the film consists of little more than crap that Gilbert simply made up.
<p>
Gilbert uses his Faux-bama narrator to play a storytelling trick on his viewers; since the narration is in the first-person, Gilbert can make it <i>sound</i> like a personal confession, without having to produce any evidence to support the details of that confession. When the narrator makes some shocking factual claim, the video footage doesn't show anything that substantiates that claim; rather, the video prefers stock footage that simply illustrates the *idea* of what's being said, instead of actually PROVING it. The narrator says Gramps was in the CIA? Then the movie shows black-and-white stock footage of CIA agents. The narrator, speaking as Obama himself, doesn't cite sources; he simply tells stories as if he personally experienced them.
<p>
Listing every instance of this sort of hoodwinkery in the film is more than I care to do. For instance, consider this fairly shocking revelation by Gilbert:
<p>
<blockquote>I know, I've told the tale that my grandfather was an extremely restless furniture salesman...That was a cover story. Gramps was a Company Man. A spook! CIA! After Berkeley, Gramps signed onto Air Force Intelligence, working at Shepherd, then McConnell Air Force Base, before landing a job with the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1953, Gramps was posted to Lebanon as a CIA case officer at the U.S. embassy in Beirut. That's where Mom got her first taste of living in third world countries. And she loved it!
<p>
Seattle was home to many CPUSA members...In the fall of 1956, Gramps was assigned to Seattle to monitor CPUSA...In the summer of 1959, Gramps began commuting from Seattle to Hawaii, every two weeks for the CIA as Mom began her senior year. Gramps' job was to oversee the African students and recruit them as future CIA contacts.</blockquote>
<p>
You read that right: Gilbert says Obama's granddad was a covert CIA agent who worked on Air Force bases, moved to the Middle East, spied on domestic Communists, and commuted to Hawaii twice a month while recruiting African foreign-exchange students to work for the CIA.
<p>
Gilbert labels this part of his story "Chapter 2: My Gramps, Company Man." It begins just after the 13 minute mark in the movie, and Barack Senior gets his first mention just after the 18 minute mark. Inbetween is a full five minutes of film about the Dunham family and Stanley's supposed career as a CIA operative.
<p>
How does Gilbert fill those five minutes onscreen? Almost entirely with stock footage, '50s-era video clips, maps, etc. Here is a list of EVERY onscreen image in those five minutes that is directly tied to the Dunham family:
<p>
- During the first twenty seconds of "Chapter 2," Gilbert shows seven pictures of Stanley Dunham and his family, including baby Ann.<br>
- Twenty seconds later, Gilbert shows Stanley Dunham's report card from Berkeley, which shows he got Cs in French.<br>
- A minute later, Gilbert shows <a href="http://x28.xanga.com/185f9b1158030282027205/z224776368.jpg">this photo of the Dunham family sitting on a couch</a>, claiming it was taken in Lebanon.</br>
- Two minutes after that, Gilbert shows four photos of Ann from her Mercer Island High School yearbooks.<br>
- Another minute later, Gilbert shows two more yearbook photos of Ann.
<p>
<u>And that's it</u>. In a five-minute narrative about secret careers, international travel, Communist spying, and CIA recruitment, Gilbert's only onscreen evidence is a handful of mundane, publicly-available photos of Ann and her family, and a scan of her dad's college report card. So the evidence to support his 'Gramps was a CIA agent' story certainly isn't put onscreen for viewers to see. It's also not proffered in the narration, or in the credits, or on his website.
<p>
Still, Gilbert tries to spin two of these images into something more. He claims that because Gramps took French in college, that means he was preparing for a job with U.S. intelligence. By this logic, I believe virtually every college graduate in the last half-century must be seeking work with the CIA.
<p>
Second, in the couch photo, Ann's outfit has some writing on it that Gilbert thinks spells 'NDJ.' And Gilbert further speculates that that stands for College Notre-Dame de Jamhour in Lebanon, without, say, showing that the school ever had a logo that resembled the embroidery in question. (Also, if you put 'NDJ' into Google, the website for College Notre-Dame de Jamhour is a first-page result. Is the association Gilbert's drawing the result of actual investigation, or lazy Googling?)
<p>
In short, Gilbert produces so little in support of his CIA epic that a refutation would basically consist of saying 'Gilbert provides no evidence to support this statement,' followed by links to more credible sources.
<p>
And if you're wondering where Gilbert got the inspiration for this little CIA saga, I believe it originated with none other than <a href="http://www.infowars.com/bombshell-barack-obama-conclusively-outed-as-cia-creation/">conspiracy theorist Alex Jones</a>, back in August 2010, when he published an 'expose' by fellow conspiracy journalist Wayne Madsen. The NDJ speculation seems to have first appeared in that article, and Madsen makes several other arguments that also appear in <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i>.
<p>
So rather than sharing every made-up, unevidenced claim in the film (as that would involve quoting so much of it that it might constitute a copyright violation), I've instead selected several narrator quotes that most perfectly illustrate Gilbert's willingness to fabricate stories out of thin air: the claims about private actions and conversations that Gilbert <i>could not possibly know about</i>.
<p>
<blockquote>[J]ust after New Years 1961, Mom realized she was pregnant. When she told Gramps, he yelled until she revealed who the father was, which made him yell louder. Mom screamed back, "It's your fault for dragging me to an island where I don't have any friends." Gramps knew that it was because of his job that Frank Marshall Davis had entered their home. He sunk into a haze of guilt, as he assessed the situation.</blockquote>
<p>
How could Gilbert know any of this? Simple: he couldn't. It's a private conversation between two people who are now dead. Gilbert just made it all up.
<p>
<blockquote>But then, Gramps realized he was in even bigger trouble: Frank Marshall Davis was under FBI surveillance, If they found out the #1 Communist on the island was his new son-in-law, he could lose his security clearance, and his job at the CIA. Then he really would have to sell furniture! Gramps decided to meet Frank Marshall Davis at a bar in Waikiki. Frank said he was sorry, but he was married with five kids and didn't want his wife to know. He suggested they find a substitute father to marry mom. A black man; that would legitimize the birth. Gramps liked the idea, and he knew just the guy: an African student under his supervision, who needed money: Barack Hussein Obama.
<p>
The next day, Gramps invited the Kenyan to the same bar and brought up the sham marriage. Barack said no; he was already married, with children in Kenya. Then Gramps explained, if you marry an American citizen, you can get a work permit and extend your visa to study for a PhD. Barack recognized the opportunity, and agreed under two conditions: number one, that the marriage take place away from Honolulu, and number two, that he bear no responsibility for the child. Gramps agreed the birth certificate would state "Father Unknown," and the deal was done.</blockquote>
<p>
You see, Joel Gilbert was apparently a time-traveling fly-on-the-wall in an unnamed Hawaiian bar in 1961. How else could he know that these conversations happened, or what was said in them?
<p>
<blockquote>So Gramps tracked down Barack at a government office in Nairobi. "Remember me?" he asked. Barack didn't want to bother; said he'd done his part of the deal ten years ago. So Gramps offered the Kenyan his own apartment and money to spend; a month-long Hawaiian vacation. All he had to do was show up at the school with ID, and keep up the ruse for young Barry.</blockquote>
<p>
As if Gilbert wasn't straining credibility enough already, now he's a time-traveling fly-on-the-wall <b><i>in Kenya</i></b>.
<p>
It should go without saying at this point that Gilbert is still providing no evidence to support the reality of any of these supposed conversations or events. While the narration provides these flights of fancy, the onscreen imagery continues to be dominated by stock video or public domain footage from the mid-20th century, publicly available photographs of Davis or of the Dunhams, video of old Davis interviews, old location photographs, maps, newspapers, etc.
<p>
<blockquote>Sure enough, at age twelve, I learned the truth. I was poking through some boxes at Gramps' place, when I found my birth certificate. Why was the father unknown? I demanded to know. Gramps slowly came clean, and I cried and cried. Why had no one told me the truth? Gramps dropped me off at Uncle Frank's house, where Frank tried to make light of the situation...
<p>
Rightfully, I was Frank Marshall Davis, Jr., son of the great Communist writer and poet. I told my father I wanted to change my name, but he said white folks are more accepting of Africans than they are of American Negros. You'll get a lot further with "My daddy's from Kenya."</blockquote>
<p>
You'll notice, of course, that Gilbert isn't even TRYING to explain to his viewers how he knows this stuff. He's too lazy to even engage in standard conspiracy theorist tropes of connecting-the-dots. He just has his first-person narrator say that it happened this way, and hopes that his audience won't pause to ask any questions.
<p>
Gilbert doesn't limit his omniscience just to conversations from Obama's childhood. No, he also knows all about secret interactions with Bill Ayers <u>and</u> Bill Ayers' dad, claiming that Obama met the Ayers not while working in Chicago, but <i>a decade earlier in New York City</i>, at a 1982 rally supporting Bernardine Dohrn:
<p>
<blockquote>Afterwards I struck up a conversation with Bill. We walked toward his apartment on 123rd street. It was like meeting the Beatles!...I told Bill I'd seen him and Bernadine on TV when they surrendered and left the Underground...I wanted to impress Bill, so I told him I joined May 19 because I was a Red Diaper Baby. That my father was Chicago Communist Frank Marshall Davis. Af first, Bill was shocked...Bill called his father and put me on the phone with him. That's when Thomas Ayers told me whenever I needed anything, just to let him know...That was the beginning of my thirty-year relationship with Bill Ayers and his family...
<p>
Bill said, "But my pipe bombs were pipe dreams. It's impossible to overthrow the government from the outside. That's why I'm shifting to academic indoctrination, to overthrow the system from within."</blockquote>
<p>
Evidence for ANY of this: none.
<p>
And lest Gilbert tries to defend himself by saying that all of these heretofore unknown private conversations are just dramatic license, remember what Gilbert himself said: "In my film I'm all about telling the truth. I'm not twisting anything. I'm not entertaining anybody." Either he's committed to telling the truth, or he's making stuff up; he can't have it both ways.
<p>
All of the above, of course, is just what Gilbert makes up in the movie itself. He's exhibited additional bouts of omniscience in the course of promoting the film.
For instance, <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/was-communist-mentor-intimate-with-obamas-mother/">Gilbert told WND</a>: "As Ann Dunham engaged in nefarious activities with Frank Marshall Davis, who was likely involved in pornography and prostitution, why would she bring 10 year-old Barry back from Indonesia and tell her father something to the effect of, 'I’m going back to Indonesia, but please take young Barry to Frank’s house a few times a week.'"
<p>
Gilbert has repeated this story of 'Ann told Gramps to take Barry to see Frank twice a week' many times, especially on Peter Boyles' radio show. So many times, in fact, that when Boyles had <a href="http://www.khow.com/cc-common/podcast/single_page.html?podcast=fullshow_boyles">Dinesh D'Souza</a> on the air to discuss his movie "2016," Boyles insisted that this scene was in Obama's own memoir. Gilbert's lied to Boyles so many times that even though he's never cited a source for this claim, Boyles is nonetheless convinced that Obama himself personally admitted to it in print.
<p>
Gilbert's narrative is so littered with lies that he cannot even keep them straight. In the film, Gilbert lays out a scenario where Stanley Dunham is a CIA agent who is tasked with monitoring Frank Marshall Davis, and in the course of his work he introduces Davis to his daughter Ann. The film then claims that Stanley orchestrates the 'Barack Obama Sr' cover story in order to save face at work.
<p>
In interviews, however, Gilbert repeatedly tells the story about Ann instructing Gramps to see the old black man she used to hang out with and listen to records with, as if Gramps had no particular knowledge of who Davis was. In the movie, Gramps is portrayed as a government agent who knows all about Frank Marshall Davis from the moment he moves to Hawaii; while on the radio, Gramps is a blissfully ignorant father who doesn't know Frank Marshall Davis from Miles Davis. If Gramps was ignorant of Davis in 1971, then he wouldn't have masterminded an elaborate coverup in 1961. And if he knew Davis as a Communist in 1961, then why would he risk his career and reputation to visit him twice a week with his grandson a decade later? Gilbert's willing to tell inconsistent fictions simply because he doesn't *care* about telling the truth.
<p>
As I said at the top, Joel Gilbert doesn't like to cite sources. And people who don't like to cite sources should always set off one's skeptical radar. Not only does Gilbert make numerous allegations that he fails to back up factually, but many of the tentpole moments in his film involve events and conversations that Gilbert could not possibly know about. In making these sorts of grand pronouncements, Gilbert has the burden of explaining what he discovered that supports them. And rather than live up to that burden, Gilbert runs from it.
<p>
UPDATE: It has come to my attention that the film actually carries a disclaimer that I failed to notice, which says that the movie includes such things as "re-creations of probable events, and speculation."
<p>
I failed to appreciate this, perhaps, because I was more taken by an entirely contradictory statement of Gilbert's, which I quoted in my initial post on his film:
<p>
<b>"In my film I'm all about telling the truth. I'm not twisting anything. I'm not entertaining anybody."</b>
- Joel Gilbert, The Peter Boyles Show, Sep. 26, 2012
<p>
And yet he runs a Kevin Trudeau-style disclaimer that says his movie <i>might</i> be true, and that he actually just made up large chunks of it. Further reason why he is not to be trusted.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-3810620231788107142012-09-29T11:35:00.000-04:002012-09-30T01:59:24.067-04:00Fever Dreams From My Real Father #7: Gilbert's "Mockumentaries"<i>Dreams From My Real Father</i> is not Joel Gilbert's first DVD documentary to present a wild conspiracy theory that attempts to completely rewrite the life of a world-famous individual with stories of cover-ups that extended over whole decades, and claims of astonishing new evidence that Gilbert says he uncovered. In 2010, Gilbert wrote and produced <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1683472/">Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison</a>, and in January 2012 he released <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2124782/">Elvis Found Alive</a>. Both were projects of Gilbert's production company, Highway 61 Entertainment.
<p>
<i>Paul</i> (available on Netflix streaming) makes the case that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced in the Beatles by a doppleganger. <a href="http://www.paulreallyisdead.com/">Gilbert's website</a> claims that in 2005, he received a mysterious envelope with no return address, containing two microcasettes that featured George Harrison's extended confession of the cover-up. Images of the envelope and tapes are prominently featured in the film and <a href="http://www.paulreallyisdead.com/aboutthefilm.html">on the website</a>. In his introduction to the film, Gilbert says that he had the tapes tested by "three different forensic labs." The audio of 'George' is then used as the movie's narration for the following hour and a half.
<p>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WODuA8Fg1Kg"><i>Elvis</i></a>, by contrast, argues that the King of Rock and Roll did <u>not</u> die in 1977, but instead faked his death and lived on as a federal drug enforcement agent named "Jon Burrows." As in <i>Paul</i>, Gilbert says he obtained previously-secret evidence to support this claim, this time through a Freedom of Information Act request. Gilbert features himself prominently in the film, as he claims to track down the living Elvis, who he interviews and convinces to record a new album. Somewhat inexplicably, Gilbert's Elvis even rants about Bill Ayers and "Barry Soetoro," conveniently segueing into Gilbert's next project.
<p>
Of course, in <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i>, the claim is that President Obama's entire lifestory is fictionalized, beginning before his birth, and that he is the biological and ideological son of poet Frank Marshall Davis. Just as in the other two films, Gilbert has insisted that this movie's claims are also based on astonishing evidence he gathered, even though the movie consists of almost nothing but existing footage and publicly available photos. Whatever extraordinary 'evidence' Gilbert obtained during his supposed trips to Hawaii somehow failed to make it onscreen. And just as <i>Paul</i> was narrated by a supposed George Harrison, and <i>Elvis</i> prominently featured the voiceover of a supposed elderly Mr. Presley, <i>Dreams</i> is narrated by an Obama soundalike.
<p>
There are <a href="http://syrinscorner.blogspot.com/2011/03/paul-mccartney-really-is-dead-not.html">plenty</a> of <a href="http://blogcritics.org/video/article/dvd-review-paul-mccartney-really-is2/">reviews</a> of <a href="http://blogcritics.org/video/article/dvd-review-elvis-found-alive/">these films</a> online, detailing just how ridiculous and fact-impaired they are. The <a href="http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/45598/paul-mccartney-really-is-dead-the-last-testament-of-george-harrison/">DVDTalk reviews</a> are <a href="http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/54080/elvis-found-alive/">particularly thorough</a>. One review offered up a description of Gilbert's work that perfectly encapsulates his <i>Dreams</i> as well: <i>"The allegations are so preposterous, we were laughing out loud; had this been evidence offered in a courtroom, we’d have been removed."</i>
<p>
With almost no time wasted, <i>Paul</i> gets off to an inauspicious start. Just after the opening montage and before Gilbert's introduction, this establishing shot appears:
<p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWdTfUFk93IGCybKOLjnhSG0YDal82C7TjKhPhyphenhyphenAR7p1cnNjJtm8oIx-GV9M9ccpCbcyEeE_5zB0fBX8ttm8dtZyB7RG8QdDWJErLePwOcTWOamH9H3gYYhSlF77wS4_Vu0RteYNMKxxsX/s1600/Highway61BuildinginPaul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="184" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWdTfUFk93IGCybKOLjnhSG0YDal82C7TjKhPhyphenhyphenAR7p1cnNjJtm8oIx-GV9M9ccpCbcyEeE_5zB0fBX8ttm8dtZyB7RG8QdDWJErLePwOcTWOamH9H3gYYhSlF77wS4_Vu0RteYNMKxxsX/s320/Highway61BuildinginPaul.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
If you think that looks Photoshopped...you're right. It's <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com./cat.mhtml?lang=en&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&searchterm=building+empty+parking+lot&search_group=&orient=&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&commercial_ok=&color=&show_color_wheel=1#id=24680452&src=e9cf5da26d847ccd63e02c408a51455d-1-1">a stock image of an office building</a>, with a fake "Highway 61 Entertainment" logo slapped on it:
<p>
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<a href="http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/80040/80040,1234022452,7/stock-photo-an-office-building-with-a-empty-parking-lot-24680452.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="450" src="http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/80040/80040,1234022452,7/stock-photo-an-office-building-with-a-empty-parking-lot-24680452.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
Two minutes in, and Gilbert is already lying to his viewers. (Oh, and to any Birthers reading, <i>that</i> is how you prove something was Photoshopped.)
<p>
There's also an intriguing tidbit at the other end of <i>Paul</i>, in the closing credits. Lance Lewman is listed as one of two "Researchers" on the film. Lewman is a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0507917/">professional voiceover artist</a> who just happened to also narrate two of Gilbert's other films: <i>Atomic Jihad</i> and <i>Farewell Israel</i>. If Gilbert simply hired his previous narrator to fake a British accent, then that makes his 'mysterious envelope' story all the more contemptible.
<p>
Nowadays, Gilbert would likely defend his Paul and Elvis films on the grounds that they weren't meant to be serious. On the <a href="http://www.highway61ent.com/store/category/spoofs-mockumentaries/">Highway 61 website</a>, they are listed under the category of "Spoofs/Mockumentaries."
<p>
That category, however, is a relatively new addition to Gilbert's company website. Previously, <i>Paul</i> and <i>Elvis</i> were promoted as straightforward documentaries, both in the films themselves and in Gilbert's promotional efforts. Gilbert's company website <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20101227062540/http://highway61ent.com/films.html">used to list</a> <i>Paul</i> directly alongside his Middle-East documentary <i>Atomic Jihad</i> and one of his Bob Dylan retrospectives. As mentioned above, the introduction to <i>Paul</i> has Gilbert directly telling his audience a story about how he received the mysterious tapes in the mail, and how he spent five years having them scientifically tested. In <a href="http://www.classicbands.com/JoelGilbertInterview.html">this interview</a>, Gilbert claims to have commissioned scientific testing on the mysterious tapes he says were mailed to him:
<blockquote>Gilbert: "we do have in L.A. forensic equipment in different film studios that we've worked with as well as somebody who's actually had some experience with the police. We went to three different places, each time trying to get a little more sophisticated in our comparison...we found out that the voice did match up quite well with some recordings and interviews from Harrison from the late '90s that he'd given and that it was extremely close to that. And that's how each time we tried to nail it a little closer to the point where we were told it's a high likelihood it is Harrison."</blockquote>
<p>
And, of course, if <i>Paul</i> was just a 'mockumentary' narrated by a George impersonator, then that means Gilbert was lying through his teeth when he discussed all these supposed forensic tests, and the "high likelihood" that it's Harrison's actual voice. In <a href="http://ringsidereport.com/?p=7345">another interview</a>, Gilbert claims his attorney said "the usage of Harrison’s voice is legal because the film is a both journalism and a documentary." Documentary, he said. Not spoof.
<p>
Nowhere is Gilbert's subsequent change-of-tune more obvious than on the film websites themselves.
<p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQqS81NLlJol1zHLegi-a6uUUjp_bCGMx3fvQtbJ8vMrymLXaOblA4cspe8GUJ7boffxNlAHPn3zcBTA2kpLrm1_qGOJ8jyFPD7Xg9tPBamvevo-EJtuzp7wQXE4T_wy9AwURbvDL79QDn/s1600/PaulIsDeadWebsite2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="180" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQqS81NLlJol1zHLegi-a6uUUjp_bCGMx3fvQtbJ8vMrymLXaOblA4cspe8GUJ7boffxNlAHPn3zcBTA2kpLrm1_qGOJ8jyFPD7Xg9tPBamvevo-EJtuzp7wQXE4T_wy9AwURbvDL79QDn/s320/PaulIsDeadWebsite2012.jpg" /></a></div>The image to the right shows the <i>Paul</i> website as it appears today. It begins:
<p>
<blockquote>The "Paul is Dead" urban legend that exploded worldwide in 1969 was considered a hoax. In this mockumentary spoof of "Paul-Is-Dead," a voice on mysterious tapes reveals a secret Beatles history, chronicling McCartney's fatal accident. A package arrives from London with no return address. Inside are two mini-cassette audio tapes dated December 30, 1999 and labeled THE LAST TESTAMENT OF GEORGE HARRISON...</blockquote>
<p>
It plainly says "mockumentary spoof" in the second sentence. But that language wasn't added to the website until sometime <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110715053525/http://www.paulreallyisdead.com/">after July 2011</a>. The <i>Paul</i> website as it appeared in 2010, both before and after the DVD's September 2010 release, told a different story. It spotlighted Highway 61's role far more prominently, instead of the passive-voice construction of today ("A package arrives" "audio tapes dated"), and it never used the words "mockumentary" or "spoof" at all. Instead, as seen on the bottom right, it advertised the film as being a perfectly serious investigative expose:
<p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJaymo0euLRgNz5dg1wgnf2-wZllUyZ4OwalS5TsQ5gkh2IC9pCargjMtb5sIUjziHrHLW15TboEO5LnLdNSm-JNqpc42ip8j4FvDYsm0pSgk-ekq_VFxu6LK_-FrPL3HGYSNVQEbhzQmB/s1600/PaulIsDeadWebsite2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="180" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJaymo0euLRgNz5dg1wgnf2-wZllUyZ4OwalS5TsQ5gkh2IC9pCargjMtb5sIUjziHrHLW15TboEO5LnLdNSm-JNqpc42ip8j4FvDYsm0pSgk-ekq_VFxu6LK_-FrPL3HGYSNVQEbhzQmB/s320/PaulIsDeadWebsite2010.jpg" /></a></div>
<blockquote>Until now, the “Paul is Dead” mystery that exploded worldwide in 1969 was considered a hoax. However, in this film, George Harrison reveals a secret Beatles history, chronicling McCartney’s fatal accident, the cover up, dozens of unknown clues, and a dangerous cat and mouse game with “Maxwell,” the Beatles’ MI5 handler, as John Lennon became increasingly reckless with the secret. Harrison also insists that Lennon was assassinated in 1980 after he threatened to finally expose "Paul McCartney" as an imposter!
<p>
Highway 61 Entertainment has corroborated most of George Harrison’s stunning account of the conspiracy to hide McCartney’s tragic death. Harrison’s complete audio tapes narrate this film that includes all the newly unearthed evidence. <i>The Last Testament of George Harrison</i> may prove to be the most important document of rock and roll history, leaving little doubt that <i>PAUL McCARTNEY REALLY IS DEAD!</i></blockquote>
<p>
What Gilbert says in 2012 is a "mockumentary spoof," in 2010 he was promoting as "the most important document of rock and roll history." Similarly, in 2012, he's claiming that the content of <i>Dreams</i> <a href="http://www.obamasrealfather.com/downloads/gilbertNationalPress.pdf">would earn any journalist a Pulitzer</a>; what will he be saying about it two years from now?
<p>
Gilbert did the same rewriting of history with his Elvis movie, but even more blatantly. Here's <a href="http://www.elvis-collectors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=65910">a screenshot of ElvisFoundAlive.com</a> circa the release of the DVD:
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSefITAkSoLJRn5F1zgIGcMCR0iT3tbS4g3Nm5x1CELbgtpImYMXwPfpoTW7It9ApjHETMDvX-HY_gI1bGU0RmlPuMqebbLCXpx6pZJKflfAnNqxQOeYhFH0O_VsiA5GdLwhYaPDOu4ebV/s1600/elvisfoundalive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="204" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSefITAkSoLJRn5F1zgIGcMCR0iT3tbS4g3Nm5x1CELbgtpImYMXwPfpoTW7It9ApjHETMDvX-HY_gI1bGU0RmlPuMqebbLCXpx6pZJKflfAnNqxQOeYhFH0O_VsiA5GdLwhYaPDOu4ebV/s320/elvisfoundalive.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
And here is ElvisFoundAlive.com as it appears today:
<p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs-ksMUWKVuxNTHsOH9wIHLJyzCj45s-7EeRxm61KLGX3Km-Z5Zw-D1D5Nbh66z4YkRfL45615-EZ0t4w__gwYHSzuql-qT9e_z5J8JiIn0WoxCEYd5XYIzELtb8owjOgsY1L18l3yb-Zb/s1600/ElvisFoundAlive2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="180" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs-ksMUWKVuxNTHsOH9wIHLJyzCj45s-7EeRxm61KLGX3Km-Z5Zw-D1D5Nbh66z4YkRfL45615-EZ0t4w__gwYHSzuql-qT9e_z5J8JiIn0WoxCEYd5XYIzELtb8owjOgsY1L18l3yb-Zb/s320/ElvisFoundAlive2012.jpg" /></a></div>
First sentence then: "ELVIS has been FOUND, ALIVE!"
<p>
First sentence now: "In this new mockumentary spoof of Elvis theories, Elvis has been FOUND ALIVE!"
<p>
And it wasn't just on his individual promotional websites that Gilbert did this. His original <a href="http://elv75.blogspot.com/2011/11/november-21-alive.html">press releases</a> and promotional materials treated the films as perfectly serious, and never used the word "mockumentary." <a href="http://blogcritics.org/video/article/dvd-review-elvis-found-alive/">Reviews</a> noted that the movies were advertised as "documentaries." The <a href="http://matthewsaliba.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/dvd_sleeve.jpg">DVD</a> <a href="http://www.elvisfoundalive.com/downloads/EFA_DVD_Sleeve.jpg">sleeves</a> didn't call themselves "mockumentaries" or "spoofs." And Gilbert gave <a href="http://www.classicbands.com/JoelGilbertInterview.html">multiple</a> <a href="
http://www.thisisfakediy.co.uk/articles/features/paul-really-is-dead-says-new-documentary/">interviews</a> about the Paul film where he claimed the movie was a completely serious investigative piece, including <a href="http://indigestmag.com/blog/?p=5589#.UF4OT1FTGSr">doubling-down on the 'mysterious envelope' backstory</a>.
<p>
Even over at the Internet Movie Database, Gilbert's <i>Paul</i> is <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1683472">today</a> categorized under three genres: "Documentary | Fantasy | Music." But back in <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20100917084925/">September 2010</a>, just after the DVD was released, it had just one genre label: "Documentary."
<p>
When one is confronted with questionable evidence, a basic question to always ask is "How credible is the source?" Has he made grand pronouncements before, only to be subsequently proven wrong? Has he made similar mistakes in the past? Does he simply have a history of lying, and recycling the same sorts of lies?
<p>
In 2010, Joel Gilbert made a DVD movie about Paul McCartney where he declared to the world that he'd uncovered astonishing new evidence that would rewrite Paul's life as we know it...until he later changed his tune and said that it was just a big joke.
<p>
In 2011, Joel Gilbert made a DVD movie about Elvis Presley where he declared to the world that he'd uncovered astonishing new evidence that would rewrite Elvis' life as we know it...until he later changed his tune and said that it was just a big joke.
<p>
In 2012, Joel Gilbert made a DVD movie about Barack Obama where he declared to the world that he'd uncovered astonishing new evidence that would rewrite Obama's life as we know it...
<p>
...who do you think the joke's on this time?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-78949488979554086202012-09-28T18:54:00.001-04:002015-04-27T15:47:04.441-04:00Joel Gilbert's "Dreams From My Real Father" Exposed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.obamasrealfather.com/i/inside/dreamsFromMyRealFather.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.obamasrealfather.com/i/inside/dreamsFromMyRealFather.jpg" height="324" width="218" /></a></div>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/09/fever-dreams-from-my-real-father-7.html">#7: Gilbert's "Mockumentaries"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/09/fever-dreams-from-my-real-father-6.html">#6: The Omniscient Joel Gilbert</a></li>
<li><a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/10/fever-dreams-from-my-real-father-5-joel.html">#5: Joel Gilbert's Phantom Evidence</a></li>
<li><a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/10/fever-dreams-from-my-real-father-4.html">#4: Family Portraits</a></li>
<li><a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/10/fever-dreams-from-my-real-father-3.html">#3: Factual Failings</a></li>
<li><a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/10/fever-dreams-from-my-real-father-2-anne.html">#2: "Anne" vs. Ann</a></li>
<li><a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/10/fever-dreams-from-my-real-father-1-nude.html">#1: The Nude Photos Debunked</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/10/joel-gilbert-vs-complete-exotique.html">Joel Gilbert vs. The Complete Exotique</a> (video of Gilbert's photos in 1958 publication)</li>
<li><a href="http://barackryphal.blogspot.com/2012/10/joel-gilbert-really-is-lying-to-you.html">Joel Gilbert Really Is Lying to You</a> (interview with owner of Frank Marshall Davis' house)</li>
</ul>
Joel Gilbert's direct-to-DVD movie <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i> is to the Obama Birther movement what Dylan Avery's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_Change_%28film_series%29"><i>Loose Change</i></a> was to the 9/11 Truthers. It is a slickly-polished piece of propaganda, designed to promote a fringe conspiracy theory through the presentation of extensive misinformation. But whereas <i>Loose Change</i> has inspired <a href="http://emptv.com/research/loose-change">extensive</a>, <a href="http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html">point-by-point debunkings</a>, it's doubtful that anyone will ever give Gilbert's film that much attention. Not because it's *good* mind you, but simply because it's just that unimportant.
<p>
Or like one man said of the 9/11 Truthers, the political and spiritual predecessors to the Obama Birthers, "The very idea of the 9/11 Truth Movement, that the US was behind the attacks, is such utter nonsense that a film to debunk this theory is unnecessary." Ironically, that man was <a href="http://ringsidereport.com/?p=7345">Joel Gilbert</a>.
<p>
And yet, for the next few days, I'm going to be doing just that on a much more limited basis. Because although Gilbert may not be worthy of the effort, his claim of spending <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hS1SMMxvGY">hundreds of thousands of dollars</a> to send free DVD copies to unsuspecting voters means that this is a fringe production with a promotion budget that is respectably mainstream. Moreover, <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/anti-obama-movie-mailed-to-1-million-ohioians">Gilbert refuses to disclose who is funding this effort</a>. So if some anonymous benefactor is willing to spend a half-million to raise public awareness of Gilbert's claims, I can afford a little time to demonstrate why he's untrustworthy and his claims are crap.
<p>
First, for the unfamiliar, <i>Dreams From My Real Father</i> is a DVD 'documentary' written and directed by Joel Gilbert. Its central thesis is that President Barack Obama is not actually the son of the man he says is his father, Barack Hussein Obama of Kenya. Rather, Gilbert proposes that Obama's *true* biological father is the African American poet and one-time Communist activist Frank Marshall Davis. Davis was a known friend of Obama's grandfather when Obama was young, but Gilbert says that Davis was much more, and he lays out his theory that Obama's mother and grandparents engaged in a multi-decade ruse to cover up the truth about Obama's paternity. Further details can be seen in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jrrnkKmUzo">Gilbert's promotional video</a> and on <a href="http://www.obamasrealfather.com/">Gilbert's website</a>.
<p>
Where did these improbable allegations come from? Let's cover some history for a moment. In the spring of 2008, <a href="http://birthofanotion.com/home/the-secret-origin-of-the-birthers">a rumor was begun online about where Barack Obama was born</a>, and in June 2008 it blossomed into <a href="http://birthofanotion.com/home/secret-origin-part-2">a full-fledged fringe conspiracy theory</a>. Over the next few months it spread and grew, and it also began inspiring spin-off conspiracy theories about his birth and citizenship. That Obama was born in Canada. That Obama was adopted. That Obama was an Indonesian citizen. That Obama lost his American citizenship as a child. That Obama was never a U.S. citizen to begin with.
<p>
Then in September 2008, another new rumor was created at the right-wing website <a href="http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/">The Astute Bloggers</a>. On <a href="http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/09/obamas-true-parentage-is-barack-obama.html">September 1</a>, site owner 'Reliapundit' complained about conspiracy theories that were circulating at the time regarding the parentage of Sarah Palin's infant child, and in response posed the question <b>"OBAMA'S TRUE PARENTAGE: IS BARACK OBAMA REALLY THE BIOLOGICAL SON OF FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS?"</b>
<p>
In isolation the post would seem to be little more than a satirical response to the ugly and baseless allegations that were being thrown at Palin. But Reliapundit didn't stop there. On <a href="http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/09/was-communist-frank-marshall-davis.html">September 13</a> he was arguing that Obama <i>looks</i> more like Davis than Obama Sr., and by <a href="http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/09/obamas-real-father-connecting-dots.html">September 30</a> he had assembled a list of questions that he suggested supported a secret father-son relationship between Davis and then-candidate Obama. (Nearly all of the points in the September 30, 2008 post at The Astute Bloggers are also in Gilbert's 2012 movie.)
<p>
Then on <a href="http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/10/naughty-obama-mamma.html">October 22, 2008</a>, Reliapundit resorted to full-on <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/09/28/obama_conspiracy_theory_movie_dead_mother_s_sex_life_is_target_in_dreams_from_my_real_father_.html">"slut-shaming,"</a> publishing three nude photographs that he claimed were of Obama's mother as a teenager, and suggesting that the photos were taken by Frank Marshall Davis. These photos (which a watermark indicates were from "free-vintage-porn.com") are the cornerstone of Gilbert's movie.
<p>
At the same time that The Astute Bloggers website was publishing erotic photos, established Obama conspiracy theorist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/us/politics/13martin.html?_r=4&pagewanted=all">Andy Martin</a> also <a href="http://contrariancommentary.blogspot.com/2008/10/barack-obama-is-not-barack-obama.html">started promoting the idea</a> that Obama was the biological son of Frank Marshall Davis. Martin's rationale for this allegation was less developed than Reliapundit's, but his notoriety in anti-Obama circles accomplished something that the posts at The Astute Bloggers hadn't: the rumor began to spread. Within 48 hours, multiple anti-Obama blogs were republishing Martin's claim, and it wasn't long before they also began repeating the nude photo allegations.
<p>
(Right-wing blogger Pamela Geller made a seemingly unrelated post on <a href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/10/how-could-stanl.html">October 24</a> offering up an even more outrageous theory about Obama's paternity: that he was actually the secret, out-of-wedlock son of civil rights activist Malcolm X. Whereas Martin and Reliapundit at least had the benefit of young Obama having <i>known</i> Davis, Geller doesn't expend much effort explaining how Obama's mother in Hawaii could have ever even <i>met</i> the New York-based Malcolm X.)
<p>
Since 2008, the rumor has mostly just floated around the internet, garnering a relatively insignificant following until Gilbert made it the focus of his movie. The news media has continued, justifiably, to ignore it, except to the extent that it <u>is</u> newsworthy: the (purpoted) fact that some unidentified financial backer is paying to have this thing sent to over a million unsuspecting voters.
<p>
So during this next week, I'm going to break down the ways in which Gilbert and his film are untrustworthy. It's not going to be a point-by-point debunking; my critique is going to be divided thematically.
<p>
Finally, here's a quote to remember in the next few days:
<p>
<blockquote>
<b>"In my film I'm all about telling the truth. I'm not twisting anything. I'm not entertaining anybody."</b><br />
- Joel Gilbert, <a href="http://www.khow.com/player/?station=KHOW-AM&program_name=podcast&program_id=fullshow_boyles.xml&mid=22476371">The Peter Boyles Show, Sep. 26, 2012</a></blockquote>
Gilbert has told the media and the public, repeatedly, that he means for his movie to be taken seriously. That he is credible, that his allegations are substantiated, and that he has the evidence to back them up. In short, that he can be <u><b>trusted</b></u>. But extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, and Gilbert can't deliver that. I can't promise that I'll convince <i>everyone</i> that Joel Gilbert is a charlatan and his film is a joke, but I think by this time next week, anyone who continues to trust Gilbert has some depressingly low standards for what they'll believe.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-5913702680905744942012-06-12T09:57:00.001-04:002012-06-12T11:01:32.312-04:00Barack Obama Was Born in HawaiiFour years ago last Friday, the Birther 'movement' effectively began, as the web began demanding to see Obama's birth certificate. Four years ago today, it was published online. And yet today, Birthers continue to issue demands, and continue to claim that others have accepted Obama's birthplace on "blind faith."
<p>
Of course, it's anything <u>but</u> blind faith. Over the past four years, Obama's birth has been thoroughly documented and verified and <i>re</i>-verified. Below is a collection of many, but still not all, of the documentary evidence supporting Obama's 1961 birth in Honolulu.
<p>
<a title="View Barack Obama Was Born in Hawaii on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/96756764/Barack-Obama-Was-Born-in-Hawaii?secret_password=1oztq88e0e8zagez7lr2" style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;">Barack Obama Was Born in Hawaii</a><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" src="http://www.scribd.com/embeds/96756764/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-1hczrmzlc8qvo4mhcznz&secret_password=1oztq88e0e8zagez7lr2" data-auto-height="true" data-aspect-ratio="0.652452025586354" scrolling="no" id="doc_19956" width="100%" height="600" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-26621475257471336402012-06-04T16:34:00.000-04:002012-06-04T16:34:28.337-04:00Obama's State Senate Webpage (1999)The Birther meme following the Breitbart story has been that Obama claimed he was born in Kenya for 17 years. One of the ways of demonstrating this is false is to show examples of Obama's biography from during that time, either <i>not</i> claiming a foreign birth or explicitly stating that he was born in Hawaii. Particularly if they were biographies that he was more likely to see.
<p>
Thus, here is a screenshot of Obama's <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/19991109015159/http://www.legis.state.il.us/homepages/senate/obamab.html">State Senate webpage biography</a>, as it appeared on October 1, 1999:
<p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZE3I4kOPo9JRjMyIjj_obJyiFeMQ9H5Ph9UAsktZn9ZRR_tzI8f_pGiuOyvtWUI76k661gjLCHZNunywqCG4Ag4c45-xdUX34w0Tu81lZL4ZUcfTs89e_bjzXBq84INrJzIHU3Xdj-kYP/s1600/ObamaStateSenateWebpage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="400" width="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZE3I4kOPo9JRjMyIjj_obJyiFeMQ9H5Ph9UAsktZn9ZRR_tzI8f_pGiuOyvtWUI76k661gjLCHZNunywqCG4Ag4c45-xdUX34w0Tu81lZL4ZUcfTs89e_bjzXBq84INrJzIHU3Xdj-kYP/s400/ObamaStateSenateWebpage.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
<b>"Biography: Attorney; born Aug. 4, 1961, in Hawaii..."</b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-91285152894116039332012-06-02T15:14:00.000-04:002012-06-03T14:42:10.514-04:00Barack Obama in Crain's Chicago Business's 1993 "40 Under 40"In the wake of Breitbart.com's promotion of a 1991 literary agency's biography of a young Barack Obama, there's been increased interest in some circles as to how the President represented himself prior to the start of his political career. And while so much has already been republished online in the last four years, from newspaper articles to videos of book panels, I found one that's been almost completely overlooked.
<p>
Crain's Chicago Business publishes an annual <a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/40under40-2011">"40 Under 40" list</a> of young up-and-comers in the Windy City. And in its September 27, 1993 list, 33-year-old Barack Obama was among those honored. (As a soon-to-be 34-year-old, I suddenly feel like an underachiever.) This recognition has been noted in several of Obama's early biographical sketches, and was <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20081005050231/http://fightthesmears.com/articles/20/acornrumor">quoted from on the Fight the Smears website</a>. But as far as I can tell, it's never been published online in its entirety.
<p>
<blockquote>
BARACK OBAMA, 33
<p>
DIRECTOR<br>ILLINOIS PROJECT VOTE
<p>
Last year, Barack Obama galvanized Chicago's political community as no seasoned politico had before.
<p>
The director of Illinois Project Vote orchestrated an unwieldy band of 10 staff members and 700 volunteers to the tune of 150,000 new voters for the general election, the highest number registered in a single effort.
<p>
"Under Barack's leadership, we had the most successful, cost-effective, and orderly registration drive I've ever been involved with," says Alderman Sam Burell of the West Side's 29th Ward.
<p>
For Mr. Obama, an attorney and community organizer by profession, the job fit two of his aspirations: political reformer and entrepreneur for social justice.
<p>
"Temperamentally, I'm more suited to the latter. Practically, it's very difficult."
<p>
In fact, his catch phrase of late is "building institutions," although he's not yet sure what to build to achieve his most ambitious goal: to improve the quality of life for the working class and the poor.
<p>
Meantime, the 1991 Harvard Law School grad works at David Miner Barnhill & Galland, a small firm that handles civil rights cases and community development projects. He also lectures at the University of Chicago Law School on issues of race and law - topics that evoke strong feelings for him.
<p>
Born to a white American mother and a Kenyan father, Mr. Obama was raised in Hawaii and Indonesia and likes to impose his world view on racial issues. "I'm in a unique position," he explains.
<p>
He's used to uniqueness. In 1990, his election as president of the <i>Harvard Law Review</i> broke the publication's color lines and made newspaper headlines.
<p>
Rather than waltz the traditional path to a Supreme Court clerkship, however, he opted to direct Project Vote, write a book on race relations (to be published by Random House next year), and assist community groups in urban real estate development.
<p>
"If you have the chance to go to Harvard Law School, it's no accomplishment to be (just) a partner in a law firm," he observes. "It is an accomplishment to make a difference."</blockquote>
<p>
<a title="View Crains on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/95715155/Crains" style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;">Crains</a><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" src="http://www.scribd.com/embeds/95715155/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-1iyj137umumer42ykmuu" data-auto-height="true" data-aspect-ratio="0.772727272727273" scrolling="no" id="doc_5979" width="100%" height="600" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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<i>(Scan courtesy of Whatever4)</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-84446051041938954922012-02-29T20:36:00.004-05:002012-04-05T17:01:14.384-04:00Jack Cashill Brags About Fake Award From Fake Law SchoolJack Cashill is the man behind the accusations that William Ayers ghostwrote Obama's memoir, <i>Dreams From My Father</i>. Last year, Cashill released a book on the subject, <i>Deconstructing Obama</i>.<br />
<br />
Currently, over at his website cashill.com, Jack is proudly bragging about that work being recognized:<br />
<br />
<b>"News: <i>Deconstructing Obama</i> just won book of the year for 2011 at Lysander Spooner Law School."</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS-YLYZYx5UXuSSaswgeoJu9-ZsbAgCHB7RCvyyK3TIycIL5be5O48PqSH7NUVuC415WURiHaA2MRyuVJwMLMpgLfe6pEaBtGADAWVQKBYt9bap0VbZqQPN27cP4xczUXEQLmwOFInJr21/s1600/cashill2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="371" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaKGEZzh0YuQhG-hAo6yiriMFVFIV7QImjUsC9q6DCQsvWL0tmpfoZdQhzrAA0gSjWVkZORiMLHKOow1sjC9aBvgzB4jmUkqAgYhpt7a0cfjqQoMtlmxMZVE98spwAN8e90Euu1p0Jnb5J/s400/cashill2.gif" /></a></div><br />
Funny thing, though: <b><u>there is no Lysander Spooner Law School</u></b>.<br />
<br />
The "school" is nothing more than a <a href="http://www.lysanderspoonerlawschool.org/">bare-bones blog</a>, with sections on Terry Lakin and "Pretensidential Politics" [sic]. If you Google the name, the <i>second</i> result is Cashill's own website.<br />
<br />
The site is run by a single person, Kenneth Olsen. <a href="http://www.caaflog.com/2010/05/26/the-king-of-guano-on-the-lakin-case/comment-page-1/#comment-14940">He said</a> that in setting up the site, he hoped for people to "apply for admission at a low cost, and earn a diploma if you pass my tests." In other words, he wanted to sell people fake law degrees.<br />
<br />
He's also, unsurprisingly, an avid Birther, who has lately been trolling over at <a href="http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2012/02/the-strange-case-of-dr-conspiracy-and-mr-obot/">ObamaConspiracy.org</a>. One of his other websites is the not-at-all-racist <a href="http://jiveasspresident.com/">http://jiveasspresident.com/</a>.<br />
<br />
But the extent of Olsen's silliness is beside the point. It's Cashill who's important here.<br />
<br />
In the Media Matters-themed article that can be seen at the bottom of the screenshot above, Cashill complains about how he is not taken seriously as a journalist or a researcher. Perhaps this is why. He's bragging about having won a nonexistent award, from a nonexistent law school. Not just in passing, or buried in a bio; it's prominently displayed at the top of his website. Since he links to the page where Olsen made up this crap about an award, Cashill is also fully aware of what the website for LysanderSpoonerLawSchool.org looks like, and it looks <i>nothing</i> like an actual law school website. <br />
<br />
So if he can't spot the difference between a law school website and an internet troll's blog, and if he can't be bothered to take two seconds to do a web search for the 'school' that supposedly honored him, why should anyone take him seriously about his ability to spot similarities between writing styles?<br />
<br />
Or worse, what if Cashill <i>did</i> spot the difference, and <i>did</i> realize that the school was fictitious, but still decided to brag about having "just won book of the year for 2011 at Lysander Spooner Law School" <i><b>anyway?</b></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616261316550803840.post-67569537208142610302012-01-03T22:29:00.028-05:002012-01-04T11:37:23.923-05:00WND's Farah Lifts From the L.A. Times and the AP?In reaction to my blog post from last week, documenting the uncredited lifting of text in a Jerome Corsi article, WND appended an 'Editor's Note' to <a href="http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=379341">Corsi's article</a>, claiming that the "error" was the result of unscrupulous (and still anonymous) "Kenyan researchers". No further explanation has followed.<br />
<br />
I then wondered if these same "Kenyan researchers" were responsible for the Aaron Klein article from two weeks earlier, where he appears to have cribbed from a CNN editorial.<br />
<br />
Now we can further ask whether these same "Kenyan researchers" must also be to blame for Farah's own November 22 column, <a href="http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=371357">"Civil rights and civil wrongs"</a>, which was published less than a month before Corsi's article. Because Farah's writing bears an uncanny resemblance to articles by the <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/brandon-mcinerney-school-criticized-by-both-sides-in-gay-teen-slaying-case.html">Los Angeles Times</a> and the <a href="http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/nov/22/calif-teen-faces-21-years-after-guilty-plea/">Associated Press</a>. And Farah's column contains no links or citations whatsoever, much less to the L.A. Times or to the AP specifically.<br />
<br />
Here are some comparisons of the text, with quotes from Farah's column italicized, and word-for-word identical text bolded:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/brandon-mcinerney-school-criticized-by-both-sides-in-gay-teen-slaying-case.html">Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2011</a>:<br />
<blockquote>Students and teachers at the trial testified that King had been dressing in women's accessories and wearing makeup, and was flirting aggressively with male students on campus who did not want the attention.</blockquote><i>Joseph Farah, November 25, 2011:<br />
<blockquote>For whatever reasons, the 14-year-old was acting up by dressing in girls' clothing, wearing makeup and flirting aggressively with other young boys in his junior high school in Oxnard.</blockquote></i><br />
<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/brandon-mcinerney-school-criticized-by-both-sides-in-gay-teen-slaying-case.html">Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2011</a>:<br />
<blockquote>The victim's mother, Dawn King, revealed for the first time Monday that she had contacted school officials four days before the shooting in an effort to solicit their cooperation in toning down her son's behavior. The boy had been taken from the Kings' home two months earlier by authorities because of domestic problems.</blockquote><i>Joseph Farah, November 25, 2011:<br />
<blockquote>Dawn King said she contacted school officials to solicit their cooperation in getting her son to tone down his behavior. Two months earlier, Larry King was taken from his parents because of domestic problems.</blockquote></i><br />
(Note: So far, you'll notice, there is at least the effort to rearrange the sentences, rather than simply cutting-and-pasting them. It seems that midway through "writing" this column, that proved to be too much work...)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/brandon-mcinerney-school-criticized-by-both-sides-in-gay-teen-slaying-case.html">Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2011</a>:<br />
<blockquote>She said she was told <b>that her son had a civil right to explore his sexual identity.<br />
<br />
"I knew, gut instinct, that something serious was going to happen," she said. "They should have contained him, contained his behavior."</b></blockquote><i>Joseph Farah, November 25, 2011:<br />
<blockquote>Mrs. King was told by school officials <b>that her son had a civil right to explore his sexual identity.<br />
<br />
"I knew, gut instinct, that something serious was going to happen," she said. "They should have contained him, contained his behavior."</b></blockquote></i><br />
<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/brandon-mcinerney-school-criticized-by-both-sides-in-gay-teen-slaying-case.html">Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2011</a>:<br />
<blockquote><b>School administrators sent a memo advising teachers to</b> give King his space, <b>but to report safety problems</b>. <br />
<b>Teachers at the trial testified that when they tried to report growing tensions between King and several boys, school leaders shunned them.</b></blockquote><i>Joseph Farah, November 25, 2011:<br />
<blockquote>Prior to the shooting, <b>school administrators sent a memo advising teachers to</b> leave King alone, <b>but to report safety problems</b>. <br />
<b>Teachers at the trial testified that when they tried to report growing tensions between King and several boys, school leaders shunned them.</b></blockquote></i><br />
<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/brandon-mcinerney-school-criticized-by-both-sides-in-gay-teen-slaying-case.html">Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2011</a>:<br />
<blockquote><b>Assistant Principal Joy Epstein has come under criticism for allegedly being more intent on protecting King's civil rights than in acknowledging that his dress and behavior were causing problems.<br />
<br />
"It was reported, more than once, by more than one person,'' said English teacher Dawn Boldrin. "It was documented. There is paperwork on this. She kept saying that she didn't know and she did. She knew. She did. Everybody knew."</b></blockquote><i>Joseph Farah, November 25, 2011:<br />
<blockquote><b>Assistant Principal Joy Epstein has come under criticism for allegedly being more intent on protecting King's "civil rights" than in acknowledging that his dress and behavior were causing problems. <br />
<br />
"It was reported, more than once, by more than one person,'' said English teacher Dawn Boldrin. "It was documented. There is paperwork on this. She kept saying that she didn't know and she did. She knew. She did. Everybody knew."</b></blockquote></i><br />
<a href="http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/nov/22/calif-teen-faces-21-years-after-guilty-plea/">Associated Press, November 22, 2011</a>:<br />
<blockquote><b>Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said in a statement the plea agreement ends a tragic chapter.<br />
<br />
"Ventura County along with communities and school districts everywhere must come together to promote a culture of respect and nurture the true potential found in every individual regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression," Byard said.</b></blockquote><i>Joseph Farah, November 25, 2011:<br />
<blockquote>In the aftermath of this wholly preventable tragedy, <b>Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said in a statement the plea agreement ends a tragic chapter:<br />
<br />
"Ventura County along with communities and school districts everywhere must come together to promote a culture of respect and nurture the true potential found in every individual regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression." </b></blockquote></i><br />
<br />
So once again, why exactly should anyone believe in the existence of these "Kenyan researchers"? And why are there three different articles, by three different senior WND writers, all within the span of a single month, that have committed the same journalistic offense?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0