colmado_naranja Revealed

As previously reported, WorldNetDaily has been feverishly covering the eBay seller colmado_naranja, and his auctions for the alleged Obama Kenyan Birth Certificate that he claims to have in his possession. There have been plenty of twists in this story, almost entirely on the part of colmado_naranja's own representations, but there's one 'twist' that I'm compelled to cover, and cover immediately.

Here is the latest auction, now reduced to simply auctioning off signed photographs. In it, colmado_naranja ndicates that he intends to upload a video to his YouTube account, InspectorSmith, and posts several photos of himself:

   

One enterprising Free Republic poster put that name and photo together with the seller's apparent home of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and stumbled across this photo:



That's a CBS Photo of the Day, from a year ago. The caption reads "Lucas Smith rides his bike through the water after checking up on his flooded house in the southwestern area of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Friday June 13, 2008." It looks an awful lot like colmado_naranja, doesn't it? And it's not an understatement that he has an interesting Wikipedia page. References to "Colmado Scarlette" and a Smith-penned book about the Bush Administration?

So "colmado_naranja" is apparently Lucas Smith, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Another quick round of Googling promptly turns up thisstory from the Syracuse Post Standard:

Jim Jr. was born with one kidney. It kept him going for the first 18 years of his life. He rarely missed school, and even felt fine the day a school nurse took his blood pressure and realized something was wrong. Go see a doctor, she told him. Right away...

Jim Jr. was put on the national kidney transplant list in November 2001, five months after doctors diagnosed him with end stage renal disease...

In late 2002, a man from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, sent an e-mail to the family. The man, who called himself Lucas Smith, said he was 23 years old and had emigrated from Russia five years earlier. He had seen the Web site and, Smith said, he wanted to help.

The Wilsons stopped searching for a donor. Smith passed all of the medical, physical and psychological tests. They thought he was going to save their son's life.

Then, on May 3, 2003, Smith sent Jim Wilson Sr. an e-mail saying he wanted to be compensated for donating his kidney.

Wilson said they would pay his airfare, but because it was illegal to receive money for an organ donation, they wouldn't give him any other cash.

Five months after holding out a lifeline, Lucas Smith disappeared.

Jim Wilson Sr. called the Cedar Rapids police.

Yes, at least one Lucas Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa has previously attempted to extort money for a valuable commodity in his possession, only to never deliver on it. Maybe it's the same Lucas Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Maybe not.

Bravo, Joseph Farah, for putting this story and this attempt at con-artistry in the limelight. Bravo.

Update (7/3): Another FreeRepublic poster ran Mr. Smith's name through the archives of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and unsurprisingly, Lucas Smith has a criminal history. Most notably, in 2000 he pled guilty to passing several bad checks after opening a bank account with false information, and in 1998 he received a deferred judgment on a charge of forgery.

For Inauguration Day: A Birther Platonic Dialogue

Birther: "Oh why won't Barack Obama release his birth certificate? If only he did that simple little thing, we could put this whole matter to rest. And it would only cost him ten dollars."

Rational Person (RP): "Didn't you see the birth certificate he posted online?"

Birther: "Anyone could have Photoshopped that. In fact, I saw an anonymous guy on the internet claim that he could prove it was faked. He's an expert in 'instructional media.'"

RP: "You do realize that 'instructional media' doesn't have anything to do with document analysis, right?"

Birther: "Regardless, it's still fake. If Obama truly had nothing to hide, he'd release his long-form birth certificate, not this computer printout."

RP: "How should he release it? If he simply posted a scan online, wouldn't you accuse it of being faked?"

Birther: "Oh, certainly. Anything he produces shouldn't be trusted unless it's reviewed by a competent authority, like a judge."

RP: "So if Obama obtained his long-form birth certificate, published it, had a judge review it, and then the judge announced that it was legit and he was born in Hawaii, that would be enough? You'd give up arguing that his election is illegitimate, stop filing lawsuits, and concede that he's eligible to be President?"

Birther: "Hardly. For all we know, Obama's parents could have lied to Hawaiian officials, and claimed he was born in Hawaii, when he was actually born in Kenya. Or Canada. For all we know, Hawaiian officials themselves might be in on the cover-up."

RP: "What if it can be proven beyond a doubt that the birth certificate is real and accurate, and that he was born in Hawaii. Let's say there's a video of John F. Kennedy himself playing midwife to Ann Dunham. Would that settle the matter?"

Birther: "It'd settle the matter of where he was born. But that doesn't mean he's a natural-born citizen and eligible to be President."

RP: "Why?"

Birther: "Because before he was born, his mother married a British citizen. That means she gave up her American citizenship even before he was born. And Obama can't be a natural-born citizen if neither of his parents were American citizens."

RP: "So you're begging Obama to release his birth certificate, even though you admit it won't actually stop your complaints."

Birther: "That's right."

RP: "Well, what if I can show you that American citizens don't give up their American citizenship when they marry foreigners? Will that put this to rest?"

Birther: "Oh, no. Even if I accepted that he was born in Hawaii, and that his mother was still an American citizen, his father was still a Kenyan and British citizen, and that means Obama inherited dual citizenship and thus wasn't a natural-born citizen. So he can't be President."

RP: "I see. For the sake of argument, then, let's say that I could show you that there's no requirement that a natural-born citizen be born of two U.S. citizens. Would that satisfy you?"

Birther: "Sorry, but no. Even if the birth certificate proves he was born in Hawaii, and he could show that his mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born, and that his father's citizenship didn't disqualify him, there's still the matter of Indonesia."

RP: "What does Indonesia have to do with anything?"

Birther: "When Obama's mother married Lolo Soetoro, she gave up her U.S. citizenship, and by proxy, Obama's U.S. citizenship. So he can't be President."

RP: "No, it doesn't work that way. Didn't we already cover this with her first marriage?"

Birther: "It doesn't matter. Even if her marriage didn't invalidate his citizenship, when Obama was adopted by Lolo Soetoro, he ceased to be a U.S. natural-born citizen. So he can't be President."

RP: "A minor child can't surrender his U.S. citizenship that way. Besides, there's no evidence that he was adopted in the first place."

Birther: "Even if that's the case, he's still not in the clear. Because when he traveled to Pakistan in 1981 on his Indonesian passport, he gave up his U.S. citizenship."

RP: "Apart from the fact that that wouldn't have sacrificed his citizenship, do you actually have any direct evidence that he in fact did use an Indonesian passport?"

Birther: "Not direct evidence. But American passport holders weren't allowed into Pakistan in 1981."

RP: "Do you have any evidence that that is actually true about travel to Pakistan in 1981?"

Birther: "No."

RP: "I see. OK, if you put aside the passport, would you concede that he's eligible to be President?"

Birther: "Still no. When Obama was adopted, his name was legally changed to 'Barry Soetoro.' There's no proof he ever changed his name back, but he ran for President as 'Barack Obama.' And that violates election law. I will never accept his Presidency until I see the documentation where he changed his name back to Obama."

RP: "That's impossible. How can he possibly produce that documentation, when he never changed his name away from Obama in the first place? What proof is there that he was ever legally adopted or changed his name? And even if he was adopted, what possible reason would there be to legally change his first name to a nickname?"

Birther: "A school application in Indonesia says his last name was 'Soetoro.' They take those applications very seriously in Indonesia, so this is solid legal proof that he was adopted and had a name change."

RP: "And the fact that the same application says he was born in Hawaii?"

Birther: "That was a mistake."

RP: "OK, so to recap, you wanted Obama to release a birth certificate, but when he did, you accused it of being a forgery? Right?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "And you say that if he simply shared his long-form birth certificate with the public, that could be forged too? Right?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "So you want him to release his long-form birth certificate and to have that birth certificate reviewed by a judge, to satisfy his critics and answer the questions they're asking? Right?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "And if the judge affirms that the birth certificate is legitimate and it says his place of birth was Hawaii, you say it might be falsified, right?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "And even if he proves he was born in Hawaii, you claim he's still not a natural-born citizen because of his mother's first marriage, right?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "And if he then proves that the marriage isn't an issue, you claim he's still not a natural-born citizen because of his father's citizenship, right?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "And if he then proves that his father's citizenship isn't an issue, you claim he's still not a natural-born citizen because of his mother's second marriage, right?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "And if he then proves that his mother's second marriage isn't an issue, you claim he's still not a natural-born citizen because of his supposed adoption, right?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "And if he then proves that he didn't give up his citizenship via adoption, you claim that he's still not a natural-born citizen because of his 1981 travel to Pakistan, right?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "And if he then proves that he didn't give up his citizenship via passport, and even when you run out of citizenship arguments completely, you then claim his election is illegitimate because his legal surname is Soetoro, right?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "So you want to know why Obama won't take the simple measure of releasing his birth certificate, when you already have at least eight consecutive fall-back arguments you'll make if he does so, whereby you'll continue to insist that he's ineligible for the Presidency even after he proves that he was born in Hawaii?"

Birther: "Right."

RP: "Y'know, if I were Obama, I think I'd save my ten dollars too."

"Proof (through the internet)"!

Someone made a big discovery, and announced it over on Stephen Pidgeon's website:

I found proof (through the internet) that a birth record was issued for Babyboy Obama, born at the state-supported hospital in Kenya to parents of British citizenship (Mr. & Mrs. Obama). I’m ready to go forth with this. Do you need a retainer (or Pro bono would be good !). Also, there are LOTS of published reports that Mrs. Obama did file for a Birth Certicate as soon as the plane landed in Hawaii (with baby Obama about a week old). So you can get on the internet & get the same proof that I have and give me a call 206-283-2113.

Posted by Paul LaVanway

Exciting stuff, no? I'm sure within a matter of days this remarkable new evidence will be released for public inspection.

Wait, what? You noticed I left off the date of Mr. LaVanway's post? My apologies:

PAUL LAVANWAY on January 1st, 2009 7:45 am

Ouch. Two weeks ago. And I can't say I've heard seen Mr. LaVanway's miracle evidence in that time. But that hasn't stopped folks over at Berg's obamacrimes.us from talking about his claim, even after a half-month of producing nothing:

"MommaE called and spoke to [LaVanway]. He was one of Stephen Pidgeon's plaintiff's. The information has been given to Phil and Lisa to look into."

Strangely, this same poster, Philadelphia Roof Doctor, seemed to hedge his own comments a little on the very next page:

"The guy is definitely legit - he was/is one of the plaintiffs in the Stephen Pidgeon case. He didn't and doesn't actually have the document. But, he did have some useful information that was passed on to Phil and Lisa."

If he doesn't have the document he originally claimed he found, then what makes him legit?

Why the Department of Hawaii Home Lands Doesn't Matter

Itooktheredpill repeats a canard that we've seen plenty of:

In order to process your application, DHHL [Department of Hawaiian Home Lands] utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.

When requesting a certified copy of your birth certificate from the Vital Records Section of DOH, let the clerk know you are requesting it “For DHHL Purposes,” and that you need a copy of the original Certificate of Live Birth and not the computer-generated Certification.

Posted by Itooktheredpill, January 13, 2009

This much is true; the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands does indeed require more than a computer-printed Certification of Live Birth. What the Birthers consistently, and intentionally, ignore is WHY the DHHL has this standard of proof.

The answer is, naturally, in the same DHHL manual that RedPill links to:

To be eligible to apply for a Hawaiian home lands homestead lease, you must meet two requirements:

- You must be at least 18 years of age; and
- You must be a native Hawaiian, defined as "any descendant of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778." This means, you must have a blood quantum of at least 50 percent Hawaiian.

So for this particular Hawaii department's program, which is limited to homestead leases, you need to prove your genealogy, not just your birthplace. The manual goes on:

The general rule of thumb in determining 50 percent blood quantum is to submit enough documentation tracing your genealogy to your full Hawaiian ancestor(s). Some applicants need only go back two generations, that is, to their grandparents. Others may need to go back further, gathering pieces of information which eventually grow into a large family tree with roots beginning with full Hawaiian ancestors...

You will need the certified birth certificates for:
- Yourself;
- Your biological father; and
- Your biological mother.

That's right: not only do you need your own certified birth certificate, you need certified birth certificates for BOTH of your parents. Again, only for this state program, and not for any other state purposes. The reason a computer-printed Certification is insufficient is because it only lists your parents' names and races; when you need to prove your heritage, you need more than that. Importantly, a Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth lists the newborn's parents' birthplaces, in addition to their ages and addresses.

And pause for a moment and think how many times in your life you've been asked to produce certified copies of your parents' birth certificates. It doesn't happen. That's because this is a singularly unique program, with requirements you don't see for normal state business. The only reason the DHHL has gotten singled as emblematic of Hawaiian policy is that it's the one lonely little program that would require more than Obama's provided.

Naturally, folks like Redpill conveniently ignore the fact that DHHL's concern is with genealogy, not mere birthplace. They emphasize the requirement of a Certificate rather than a Certification, and claim that that requirement should be binding on Obama, but then they turn right around and black-out the DHHL requirement to produce parental birth certificates. To even pay lip service to that detail would serve only to shine a spotlight on the unique circumstances of the DHHL and their emphasis on family (not individual) birthplaces, and nobody in their right mind would expect a Presidential candidate to produce birth certificates for his parents to run for office. As with so much else, the Birthers pick and choose which details they want to shout from the rooftops, and which ones they want to bury.

Ed Hale's Bombshell Evidence

So in the interests of my readers (do I have any readers yet?), I forced myself to sit through a good part of Ed Hale's Plains Radio Network show last night, to catch the real-time revelation of the miracle documents he'd been promising since late 2008 (i.e., Wednesday).

To refresh your memories, here's how Hale's position was described by the Investigating Obama blog mere hours after Hale made his initial announcement:

A private investigator in Hawaii has uncovered the divorce decree for Barack Obama's father and mother, which indicates they had "one child under the age of eighteen, born in Kenya." That is the report of Ed Hale of PlainsRadio.com...Hale is to receive his copy today, Wednesday, 12/31 and plans to post it graphically on the site, during the day.

Even in the original assertion he was making spin about foreign accents, bad telephone connections, and poor hearing. By late Wednesday it was announced that the release date would be delayed until Friday. By Thursday, Hale was denying that he had even uncertain information that the divorce papers said "one child under the age of eighteen, born in Kenya."

But Friday night rolled around, and as he promised, Hale produced the divorce records. And what world-shattering revelations did Hale find in these documents? Hold on to your seats, folks, because there's THREE!

- Barack's mother's name in the style of the divorce action is "Stanley Ann D. Obama"!

AND...

- Barack's father is "Barack H. Obama"!

AND...

- Barack's parents were married when he was born!

Now, to the untrained eye, all this may seem underwhelming. You may read these bombshell discoveries and think to yourself, "Um, wasn't all this public knowledge already? I mean, didn't Obama write a whole book covering this material 13 years ago? A book that was a New York Times bestseller and which won Obama a Grammy?"

(Admittedly, not everyone may be thinking about the Grammy, but it's true. In 2008, Obama won the Presidency and a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album.)

To listen to Hale and company, the bombshell evidence here is that the divorce records are legal confirmation of the above three facts, facts which Obama has never denied and which were readily available for purchase at Amazon or your local book retailer. Of course, relying on Obama's own book wouldn't have allowed Hale the opportunity to spend over an hour of his radio show asking listeners for cash donations so that he can uncover additional bombshell information like this.

Donate $100, and maybe Hale will find Obama's high school yearbook. Donate $500 and maybe he'll dig up the President-Elect's SAT score. Donate $1000 (seriously, he claimed someone donated $1300 last night) and maybe he'll actually score an interview with Obama's college dorm R.A. I mean, the sky's the limit, people!

Of course, what Hale might produce has no bearing on what he's willing to promise today to produce later. After all, he was promising hardcore evidence of Kenyan birth on Wednesday of this week. So what did Hale promise last night?

Well, he said that the "D." in "Stanley Ann D. Obama" was the lynchpin in discovering all-new bombshell evidence confirming a Kenyan birth. Apparently the conspiracy theorists had previously been foiled by all those sundry government databases that index people only by their middle initials. And Hale & Co. had apparently failed to notice that "Dunham" began with "D." It's good to know the people defending our Constitution are such intellectual giants.

Anyhow, Hale says that thanks to that middle initial, he now has reliable sources that have already located Obama's port-of-entry birth certificate, issued four days after his birth in some as-yet-undisclosed state, confirming once and for all that Obama was born in Kenya! Sadly, Hale doesn't have a copy of this miracle document yet, but he says that if people give him enough money, he might just obtain it.

The reaction from within the conspiracy theory community to all this is actually rather split. There are those who are claiming Hale is a liar and a con-man, seeking to profit off of others' fervor. And there are others who think Hale will actually deliver on Friday's claims, even though on Friday he failed to deliver on his claims from Wednesday. Some people have short memories, I suppose.

Joseph Farah Is a Very Confused Man

Joseph Farah, head honcho over at WorldNetDaily, posted an editorial of sorts a couple of weeks back about other reporters' attribution to a WND finding that Obama's Certification of Live Birth is authentic. Farah takes serious issue with this, and writes:

[A]s any regular visitor would know, I don't believe that document displayed on Obama's website proves anything about his eligibility for office – other than the fact that he seems intent on hiding something...

Here's an example. It's a constituent letter from Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. He writes: "As you know, President-Elect Obama has indeed provided his actual paper Certification of Live Birth to several media organizations, as well as the Annenberg Foundation's non-partisan 'Factcheck.org' website and the conservative news website WorldNetDaily, which reported that a WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic.' In fact, all of these groups have recognized that the president elect's actual birth certificate document is real and genuine."

That statement is totally and obviously false...At no time did Obama ever make his actual birth certificate available to WND – or any other news organization.

WND did offer up to forgery experts the facsimile of a partial birth certificate posted on his website. None of them could report conclusively that the electronic image was authentic or that it was a forgery.

Written by Joseph Farah, posted on WND, December 20, 2008

So where, you ask, did Rep. Inslee get the idea that WND had authenticated the Certification? Why, he got it from WND:

A separate WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic. The investigation also revealed methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren't originally there.

Written by Drew Zahn, posted on WND, August 23, 2008

Both of these are WorldNetDaily articles, published within four months of each other. Look again at how they conflict:

Zahn, August 23: "A separate WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic."

Farah, December 20: "WND did offer up to forgery experts the facsimile of a partial birth certificate posted on his website. None of them could report conclusively that the electronic image was authentic or that it was a forgery."

What was a conclusive finding of authenticity in August is, by December, an inconclusive finding, with Farah berating other news agencies for reporting that WND had ever made a conclusive finding.

This should serve as an object lesson to anyone who considers WorldNetDaily to be a reliable news source. Because, apparently, even Joseph Farah doesn't consider WND's reporting to be reliable.