Posted on 08/31/2010 10:19:15 AM PDT by butterdezillion
An Example of (Probably) Criminal Journalistic MalpracticeThe Journalistic Malpractice On July 21st HutchNews.com printed a retraction (at http://www.hutchnews.com/editorialblogs/edit-congress-withdraw-endorsement--1 ) of their endorsement of a Kansas primary candidate for the US House, because :
"it turns out Mann is what is known as a birther. He questions the citizenship of President Barack Obama despite evidence that is irrefutable to most objective, rational people - including a birth certificate released by the Hawaii secretary of state and birth announcements printed in Honolulu's two major newspapers." That simple statement contains a big inaccuracy. The Hawaii Secretary of State has never released Obama's birth certificate, nor has the Hawaii Department of Health (who has the BC) nor anybody in Hawaii. Obama's campaign published an online image of a COLB which went through 2 or 3 alterations on various websites before it finally surfaced at Factcheck.org as scanned photographs of what was claimed to be Obama's genuine COLB. Politifact published an article (at http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/ ) in which Janice Okubo, communications director for the Hawaii Department of Health, concluded that .
"I don't know that it's possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents" The substance of dozens of court cases is that various people are asking that the genuine birth certificate from the Hawaii Department of Health be released. Obama's lawyers have fought every case on the ground of standing – that it is nobody's place to force Obama and/or the HDOH to reveal Obama's genuine birth certificate. So when Hutch News said – out of the blue – that the Hawaii Secretary of State had already released Obama's birth certificate, they displayed a total ignorance of what the "birther" issue even IS. Yet they castigated the objective rationality of anybody who wants the genuine legal document to be released. The Hutch News retraction was mentioned on national TV by Rachel Maddow, and people on the Hutch News website praised The Hutch News for their courage in confronting those terrible, ignorant, irrational "birthers". Apparently they had no clue what a huge inaccuracy the Hutch News had just posted – an inaccuracy that revealed a lack of even the most basic comprehension regarding the eligibility issue. So I contacted the editor of The Hutch News, asking for a correction(either by their own statement or by posting my letter to the editor) to the blatantly false statement that the HI SOS had released Obama's birth certificate and alerting them to some of the facts documented on my blog (which I linked), that
This is the response that I received:
Nellie,
You're right, technically that is incorrect. To be precise we should have stated that the Obama campaign released the birth certificate but that Hawaii officials from the Department of Health have verified its legitimacy. But that is not materially important, and I am not going to engage in any of your continued speculation, which includes publishing your letter. If that is how you care to spend your time, have at it and continue the debate on your blog or wherever. But we are comfortable this has been well researched and determined and isn't something to which we will devote more time and space.
John Montgomery Hutchinson News Zooooooom!! That's the sound of the facts going right over the head of a "rational" person who considers himself responsible to inform the public on vital issues. Thinking that he had perhaps not bothered to read my entire e-mail, I responded to him with this:
John, to be precise - as I have stated and documented on my blog - the HDOH has NOT verified the Factcheck COLB's legitimacy, nor can they legally do so (according to their own claims).
You still are not grasping the basic facts of this issue, and are thus misreporting it.
As journalists, you have a responsibility to correct errors that you have made in your reporting. Are you telling me that you will not correct this error? Nellie
In 2 days it will be a month that I've waited for a response. And no correction has been made.
Why it's Probably CriminalWhat The Hutch News may not have considered is that issues under the jurisdiction of the federal government are impacted by the facts of whether a genuine birth certificate has ever been released and whether the HDOH has ever actually confirmed that the Factcheck COLB is genuine. There are court cases pending, an FBI investigation has been requested, a court-martial is in progress regarding this very issue, Congress is having to decide whether to accept SCOTUS justices nominated by a potentially fraudulent president, and the issue has been referred by Lt Col Lakin's Congressman to a House committee on military affairs. Most people realize that it is immoral for a news company to refuse to issue corrections when they become aware of an inaccuracy in what they have published. What most people – including possibly The Hutch News – may not know is that if they play fast and loose with the facts in a matter under the jurisdiction of any of the 3 branches of federal government, they could be found guilty of violating the Federal General False Statement Act – 18 U.S.C. 1001: I. Except as otherwise provided in this section, II. whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, III. knowingly and willfully – IV. a. falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
b. makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
c. makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any
materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry; shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, imprisoned not more than 8 years if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331) or if the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A (sexual abuse), 109B (sex offender registration), 110 (sexual exploitation), or 117(transportation for illicit sexual purposes), or Section 1591 (sex trafficking)........ The law is described, beginning on p 15 at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/98-808.pdf , including the following:
"Although the offense can only be committed "knowingly and willfully," the prosecution need not prove that the defendant knew that his conduct involved a "matter within the jurisdiction"of a federal entity nor that he intended to defraud a federal entity. Instead, the phrase "knowingly and willfully" refers to the circumstances under which the defendant made his statement, omitted a fact he was obliged to disclose, or included with his false documentation, i.e., "that the defendant knew that his statement was false when he made it or – which amounts in law to the same thing – consciously disregarded or averted his eyes from the likely falsity." Notice Served I intend to do a more complete post later, concerning The Federal General False Statement Act – which I believe has been violated by a multitude of people within both the federal government and the Hawaii government. Obama concealed from both Congress and the courts that the COLB published by his own campaign website was a forgery. I intend to post letters from members of Congress saying that they would not contest the certification because they believed the (forged) Factcheck COLB, the (misunderstood and not corrected) statements by Hawaii officials, and the (false) media reports concerning the issue. For right now, I give this small example of The Hutch News because it reflects what has gone on in every news room in the nation in the past 2 years, despite the diligent and tireless efforts of people like myself who have contacted the media to correct factual errors in their reportin on this issue. With this post I am serving notice to the media – which has misreported this issue all along – that we see what you have been doing, we know that it is illegal, what you've already done is on the record that will eventually come before Darrell Issa's House Ethics Committee (Lord willing), and we will be watching you very closely from here on out to see whether you "consciously disregard or avert (your) eyes from the likely falsity" of your own claims in light of the information we provide you – which is documented by actual communications from the Hawaii Department of Health. You ignore us at your own peril.
Darn. The HTML came pretty close to working. Sigh. The link to the blog post is http://butterdezillion.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/notice-served/
It marks them as part of the conspiracy for fraud. Given that the fraud is 650 million raised by the DNC on behalf of an ineligible candidate for president, it is large enough and WILL attract the attention of a tort somewhere sometime...
You make a basic mistake in thinking they care.
The left is in power now and nothing short of (dare I say it?) force of arms will remove it.
(hoping November proves me wrong!)
FWIW..the “Journolists” can probably be implicated as well.
Good luck in your efforts. Glad to see your site go after Anti-Birthers. If you are not a Birther, you are an Obama supporter
Who is John Montgomery Hutchinson and/or Hutch News and who cares what this ass hat thinks about birthers?
Their responses make it obvious that they don’t care.
But the law is the law, and when this thing comes unraveled they will not have anything to hide behind. Hutch News - and hundreds of other media outlets - were given the facts and they chose to print lies on a critical issue for our country.
I just want them to know that we see. A day of justice will come, Lord willing.
They have to desperately hold onto the lie because it would undo two SC appointments, dozens of laws, and hundreds if not thousands of federal regulations under Obastard.
I don’t care at all what he thinks about birthers, but I do care that he is reporting what he knows is falsehood. Refused to correct it when called on it.
That’s a crime. The Hutch News and every other media outlet out there needs to know that.
Anybody know Chris Matthews’ phone number? lol
Darn near every media outlet in this nation did the same thing.
The key is to document that they were informed of the facts and deliberately chose to ignore those facts and leave inaccurate reports standing.
If they did that, they engaged in the same crime that Blago just got convicted of.
I hope so.
How do they think they can get around the fact that Pelosi sent out two DIFFERENT “Certificates of Nomination”????
(can’t wait to see Pelosi in an orange jumpsuit!)
Thanks for your work, butterdezillion...and jbjd, too.
“A day of justice will come, Lord willing.”
I dare say.
I don’t know if we will be alive to see it here on earth.
And Pelosi knew that she had to sign a different certification for Hawaii because the Hawaii Democratic Party refused to certify Obama’s Constitutional eligibility.
I can’t find the link now, but somebody from the DNC was saying that the DNC relies on the state parties to check out eligibility, so if Pelosi signed a certification it was on the basis of the state democratic parties raising no objections.
But even that excuse doesn’t work for Pelosi because the very state which would know if Obama was eligible.... DID raise the objection, by refusing to certify his eligibility as they had always done for candidates in the past. They signed their certification of candidacy the day before Pelosi signed the 2 different certifications, as notice to the DNC that the DNC would have to certify eligibility.
Normally the HDP signed their certification of nomination (with certification of Constitutional eligibility) about a month after the national convention and hand-delivered it to their elections office. This time, they signed theirs (without certifying eligibility) before the DNC cert was signed and had the DNC send it all together to the Hawaii Elections Office.
And the HDP worker I spoke with refused to say who had approved their certification, who had typed it up, etc. Very defensive.
Hard to know what we’ll be alive for. I hope there is a day of justice on earth so nobody deludes himself into thinking he can evade the ultimate day of justice. Better to be forced to deal with guilt while there’s still time to repent and be forgiven of it.
I’m so thankful for forgiveness. I want everybody to have it. But it has no effect on those who refuse to acknowledge that they need it.
Thank you much for all the posts and your hard work on this effort.
I think we’ve reached the point where perhaps we need to start sending lawsuits against the media. I daresay having to fork out big money to defend themselves against a prison term might have an effect.
Or will we get these cases dismissed also due to ‘lack of standing’?
Its getting to the point where we’re going to have to fight. Literally. The original American Revolution didn’t happen overnight. It took years for resentment and anger to build. I think we’re starting to see the same resentment and anger building today as it did then. And the more that time passes and nothing is done and our voices are ignored that I’m becoming increasingly convinced it may well have to come to that again.
No, they will be dismissed because of the First Amendment.
The idea, expressed in the article, that the media are somehow guilty of a crime if they don't report that Obama is (supposedly) ineligible, is beyond nutty. 18 U.S.C. section 1001 penalizes lying to the Government, not lying about the Government. If lying about the Government were a crime, Free Republic would have been shut down long ago-- do you think everything expressed on this site is provably true? Do you really want the Department of Justice to have the power to prosecute anyone who says something false about public officials?
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