The Problem with the Announcement Stories

Two items have been offered as evidence of Barack Obama being born in Hawaii: an online COLB image which the HDOH has indirectly confirmed in 2 different ways as a forgery, and online images of birth announcements in the Hawaii papers shortly after Obama’s birth. This post will explain why I believe we’ve been fed – and swallowed – a lie about where those images came from. Later posts will give a glimpse of just how far it seems somebody was willing to go in order to have something – anything – that would suggest Obama was born in Hawaii, a critical need since Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie told Mike Evans (transcript and audio link) he had gone into both hospitals (Kapiolani and Queens) with a search warrant but found no birth certificate for Obama.

Shortly after Barack Obama’s campaign website posted what they said was Obama’s Certification of Live Birth (COLB) and questions arose regarding its authenticity, Lori Starfelt decided to see if there was a newspaper birth announcement for Obama in Hawaii. She contacted the HDOH and was told that on Fridays they printed out a list of the week’s births; “The Honolulu Advertiser” used that list to print birth announcements in their Sunday paper. So Starfelt calculated that if Obama was born on Friday, Aug 4, 1961, his birth would have been on the list the following Friday, Aug 11th, and should appear in that Sunday’s paper – Aug 13th. She contacted the Hawaii State Library (hereafter HSL), asking for a copy from the microfilm of the Advertiser’s birth announcements on Aug 13, 1961, and was sent an e-mail with an image that had Obama’s announcement on it. She posted that image, along with her story, at Texas Darlin’ Blog around July 21, 2008. (See Post 7679 )

Several days later “Infidel Granny”, posting at Atlas Shrugs Blog, said she had asked a woman at the Advertiser office about birth announcements and was told to check the HSL. She asked the HSL for a copy of the Aug 13, 1961 “Advertiser” birth announcements and the librarian sent an e-mail with the image, saying she had it handy since somebody had just asked for it a week earlier.

On Aug 13th “Koa” at Texas Darlin’ Blog posted an image for the Aug 14th Star-Bulletin announcements, which he/she had copied directly from the HSL archives.

Around Oct 21 a poster at Prius Chat also posted an image of the SB announcement, saying, “Here's a copy I made today of the August 14th (could have been the 15th or 16th), 1961 Star Bulletin newspaper showing Obama's birth announcement stored on microfilm at the Hawaii State Library in Honolulu. I had to enlarge it to the point of losing the top of the page with the date and day in order to make it readable. The microfilm is stored in the basement of the library and was in the box marked Star Bulletin Aug 1, 1961-Aug 16, 1961. ..."

On Oct 29th Whatreallyhappened.com posted images of both the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin images, which were said to be directly from the Star-Bulletin and Advertiser – which both had their microfilms stored at the Advertiser building. Note that he was not told to contact the HSL, as “Infidel Granny” says she was told.

Texas Darlin’ Blog archives, Atlas Shrugs Blog archives, the original article on Whatreallyhappened, and the Wikileaks page which also posted a copy which was a text-searchable file, have all been removed from the web, and the page at Prius Chat requires registration first; neither I nor several others who tried to register were allowed to do so. So the whole story of these claims and the images themselves have been scrubbed, except for fragments (such as the ones I link to) where others discussed and/or copied material, some of which have now been scrubbed from the web also.

I got Starfelt’s Advertiser image from a link referenced elsewhere as being Starfelt’s image, when the image was still available (“Infidel Granny” was given the same image). Whatreallyhappened still has their images posted. The Prius Chat Forum still has the link to their Star-Bulletin image. I copied Koa’s image from Photobucket when it was still available as linked to from the original post atTD Blog. (In my analysis links below I cite where each image came from.) So the images I have used come directly from the original sources.

To verify that I have not altered the images, here are some other places that still have images (as of today), although not necessarily saying the source: Both, Advertiser, Advertiser, Star-Bulletin .

When a person looks at the documents and claims about the documents, and compares them to what is actually in the Hawaii State Library microfilms, it is obvious why somebody would want these claims buried – although I am not making any specific allegations about who has done what. That should be investigated by someone with subpoena power. Here is a concise summary of what we have:

The Advertiser image that Starfelt and “Infidel Granny” supposedly got from the HSL is pristine. But in reality the HSL microfilms are so scratched up they are nearly unreadable. When a colleague asked the HSL librarian in late April, 2010, for a copy of the Aug 13, 1961 Advertiser birth announcements – the exact image that Starfelt and “Infidel Granny” supposedly got from there - this is what she was told about the condition of the microfilm (emphasis mine):

"As for your request for the Aug. 13, 1961 Honolulu Advertiser birth announcement page, I looked it up, but unfortunately, the microfilm is so worn down on top of being poorly microfilmed, that it is hardly legible. You might be better off asking another library that has a better, less used copy than ours. Or does it have to be the Advertiser? I checked the Star-Bulletin and that date and that film is fine. Let me know."

The Starfelt and “Infidel Granny” images are pristine, with no sign of being “poorly microfilmed”, which would be a constant state for the microfilms, not affected by usage. Those images are clearly not from the HSL microfilms as claimed. However, they match perfectly the images WRH got from somebody at the Advertiser office (with the exception of one C&P line in the left margin below the Asing announcement, which disappeared by the time WRH got a copy). A comparison of the images is here.

Conversely, the Star-Bulletin image – which is the exact same image for WRH, Koa, and the Prius Chat poster (right down to the same piece of hair caught in the viewer when the copy was made and the same waviness in the page being scanned), even though they each claim to have acquired their copy independently, and WRH even claims a different source - has a large scratch down the column of text. But the HSL’s Star-Bulletin microfilms are pristine, including the copy from Aug 14th, where there are no extra marks or scratches anywhere. A comparison of the images is here. To believe the stories of Koa and the Prius Chat poster, you’d have to believe that scratches disappear over time.

It is clear that what we were told about where these images came from is not true.

It appears that somebody at the Advertiser office gave out images to select people with the instruction that they were to peddle them off as genuine – the Advertiser image to the librarian at the Hawaii State Library, the Star-Bulletin image to “Koa” and the Prius Chat poster (who may have been the same person), and both images to Whatreallyhappened.com.

This is according to the statements already made and images already made public, which show glaring discrepancies in the stories. There are other discrepancies in the claims which stand out to those who have researched the microfilms as well, and those will be addressed later.

But for now the question is this: Why would somebody at the Advertiser office deceive the public into thinking their birth announcement images were actually copies made directly from the Hawaii State Library microfilms by individuals acting on their own? Why intervene at all, rather than letting these individuals get what really IS in the HSL microfilms? And who was in on this deception?

Those are questions that deserve an answer. Those like Bill O’Reilly and certain “news sources” who cite these images as their reason to ridicule “birthers” would do well to find out exactly why somebody worked so hard to deceive them on where those images actually came from.

“Does it strike you as preposterous that what “evidence” we have as to the background of the current “leader of the free world” would not stand up in a court of law?”

Yep.

“I’ve drawn no conclusions.”

Seriously? You’ve drawn no tentative conclusions based on the evidence at hand? Most of us aren’t privy to “all the facts” or even all the information presented to a jury, yet my impression is that most of us nevertheless don’t hesitate to have an opinion on matters such as a) whether OJ was guilty or innocent; b) whether Bill Clinton raped Juanita Broaddrick; or even c) who killed JFK?

Most will concede they don’t have ALL the evidence they might like to make such judgments and ideally all would be prepared to change their opinion in light of further evidence that calls into question whatever tentative judgment they have made. But that doesn’t inhibit them from drawing a “based on what I know” gut feeling about what the truth is.

So if someone asks you if you think Obama was born in the USA, you literally have no opinion on this matter? Perhaps I’m the odd man out here, but that genuinely surprises me.

The format of the bill that was introduced in time for the deadline is to address the general election, which is the only way to require it of everybody since the democrats are going to a caucus rather than a primary ballot. So the requirement is that when the national political party submits the name of their candidate it is required that basic substantiating documentation also be submitted by the party and/or candidate.

Then, when the SOS decides whether or not to include the name on the general election ballot, any candidate or any registered Nebraska voter can challenge that decision in court, and we will suggest an amendment that the challenger be granted power to subpoena any data needed to establish eligibility, including data necessary to show the integrity of the records.

So any candidate who is nominated by a party (or who gets enough write-in votes; only then the documentation process happens after the vote) is subject to the same scrutiny if somebody challenges their eligibility, and there may be people who would challenge everybody just on principle. Because of the caucuses, the only point at which we could require it of everybody is at the nomination point. I don’t know if there’s any way to get around that.

The good thing about this is that the political parties would want to make very sure that their candidate isn’t screwing around with forgeries because if their candidate is challenged and disqualified they’re left without a candidate. They may not think that a big deal since it’s “just Nebraska”, but they may end up with a candidate in all the states which is widely known to be ineligible.

Do you know if the DNC and RNC have any rule which requires them to nominate their candidate in every state?

I infer from Obama’s behavior that he has something to hide that puts his eligibility for office in question. All the alternative-dad scenarios (Stanley Dunham, Frank Davis, Malcolm X, Seattle Mystery Man) may be embarrassing, but they don’t call into question his constitutional eligibility: quite the contrary, they remove all residual doubts about eligibility.

The latter would be extremely valuable to BHO. So it’s hard for me to imagine that he would forego the benefits of removing the “dual-citizen” cloud AND spend more than $1 million to boot (albeit not his own money) fighting these suits in court merely to spare himself that embarrassment. Any of the alternative-dad scenarios reflect poorly on his mom, not him. He hasn’t hesitated to throw grandma under the bus (even though she raised him during arguably the most important years of childhood). So I don’t think he’d hesitate to throw momma under the bus. He certainly has made no effort to hide the fact that she was unmarried when she got pregnant, that her marriage failed and that in the eyes of many, she essentially abandoned her son at age 10 to free herself to pursue her career aspirations. So preserving her reputation wouldn’t appear to be high on his list of priorities.

This leaves birth outside Hawaii. Well, it can’t be Seattle since that too doesn’t create eligibility problems. Due to its proximity to Seattle, its resources for dealing with single mothers (Ann was operationally single even though nominally married) and medical facilities roughly equivalent to the U.S. in quality, Vancouver seems like the most likely place for an Obama birth.

This is consistent with the reports of how quickly Ann Obama was seen in Seattle after the birth, as normally, a doctor wouldn’t have recommended plane travel for an infant before 6 weeks of age http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/air-travel-with-infant/HQ00197

She could have gone by ship, but it’s 4300 miles from Honolulu to Seattle. It takes today’s cruise ships 6 days to cover this distance. http://travel.cruisesfrom.com/index.aspx?site=8002&tide=8903037duration Do-able in theory, but again it’s hard to picture a mom doing this with a newborn only 2 weeks old (first Seattle “sighting” was in late August IIRC). It’s far easier for me to envision travel by car (195 miles from Vancouver to Seattle: piece of cake, and not very expensive!).

By 1961, all Canadian provinces had adopted hospital insurance plans for their residents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada#20th_century. I don’t know what rules were established regarding eligibility for benefits. It seems unlikely they would allow/encourage “drop-in” deliveries by Americans without charging for them. OTOH, we know little of SAD’s whereabouts in spring/summer 1961 except that we know she WASN’T in school and no one yet has surfaced who recalls seeing her pregnant. Thus, it’s conceivable she went to Vancouver in her 5th or 6th month of pregnancy and been there long enough to establish “residency” or otherwise qualify for free care.

Even if she hadn’t, there were facilities such as St. Paul’s Hospital that might have delivered babies very inexpensively or at no charge to single women with no obvious means of support.
http://www.providencehealthcare.org/about_history_stpauls1.html

My theory doesn’t hinge on Ann having gotten free care, but it would explain why Vancouver could have been selected over Seattle as the best choice for delivery. If she’d hung out in Seattle prior to delivery, one would think that at least 1 friend would have come forward by now to report that. And it doesn’t make sense to go to Seattle to try and be incognito. She had a much greater assurance of anonymity in Vancouver than Seattle. If she DIDN’T want anonymity, there would be no particular reason to leave Honolulu where she had a built-in family support system etc.

I won’t beat the Kenyan birth theory to death. Suffice it to say that in light of all the various objections that I’ve already raised about that theory in various posts, a Vancouver birth seems far more plausible/likely.

I hope my reply warrants a passing grade...If not, I guess I’ve flunked your course.

What you said was well-stated and well-reasoned. I see your points.

What doesn’t make sense to me, though, is the statements by Kenyan officials that he was born there or the sealing of Kenyan records. What records would they seal if he wasn’t born there?

From the money end of things, there could have been another source of money, just like there were sources of money for a broke BHO II to travel to Pakistan, Kenya, and Bali - all at points where he was supposedly dead broke. We know he got at least a million (was it 3 million?) in campaign funds from sources he specifically enabled to be untrackable, and they’re claiming he’s planning on “raising” a billion for 2012. BHO Sr’s parents were described as being poor initially, but if I understand correctly they were actually quite wealthy. Correct me if I’m wrong on that.

So I see why the money issue is raised, but with as much as is hidden about that whole family and as connected as they were to the communist community, I wouldn’t write off other sources of money.

The time it takes to get to and from Kenya is another issue. If money wasn’t an issue flights would handle the timeframe pretty easily, I think. And there is a story of a missionary who helped SAD get to the airport. I’ll see if I can find that story for you to look at.

It’s embarrassing to say, but I’m still a bit confused on the timetable for when SAD had to be in Seattle. At first it was said that classes started about 3 weeks after BHO II was born. Then the questions came up as to whether they were distance classes. And last I had heard somebody was saying that the classes didn’t actually start until September. Do you know if we have anything conclusive as to when SAD was actually in Seattle?

If what rolling stone said was true about a passport not being necessary for travel to Canada and Mexico at that time, the Canada theory wouldn’t necessarily explain why the refusal to show passport records - even to the point of presenting to a judge what really appears to be a forged DOS memo. If there wasn’t the element of potential perjury I suppose it could just be them acting like a-holes in order to spite the “birthers”. But to perjure oneself just to spite somebody seems stupid even for government workers.

Interesting stuff to think about, for sure. I hope we get answers someday.

“What doesn’t make sense to me, though, is the statements by Kenyan officials that he was born there or the sealing of Kenyan records.”

I did see one statement by a Kenyan “minister” of something. It was unequivocal. That is, unlike Granny’s statement, which appears to have been “clarified” subsequently in the same interview (and this denial of a Kenyan birth was reinforced in a subsequent interview), there is no mistaking what this individual intended to say. So I’ll make 2 observations. First, we know nothing about what “information base” this individual was relying upon. He wasn’t making the statement as an official who would have had access to formal records documenting a Kenyan birth. So his information was picked up from “the news.” But we’ve already established that more than one African paper asserted Obama was born in Kenya. I’ve explained earlier why I think such reports could have arisen “innocently” through reporting mistakes especially in light of Sr. having the same name.

Second, we too keep official records of goings-on in Congress: it’s called the Congressional Record. With 535 members of Congress able to speak into the Record every day Congress is in session, it should not surprise you that from time to time, one of them mispeaks, i.e., makes a statement that is flat out wrong. It can happen because of shoddy staff work, but it also can happen because a member of Congress mis-read or misinterpreted something given to them. Members of Congress are able to “revise and extend” their remarks, but if they fail to do so for whatever reason, their error is codified forever in the printed pages of the Record. For all these reasons, the Congressional Record cannot even be relied upon in a court of law. That’s a description of the legislative record for the richest country on the planet. It doesn’t seem likely that Kenya’s system is any more reliable/accurate than our own.

People often hear or believe what they want to. The idea that Obama is a “son of Kenya” or born there clearly would have a great deal of appeal to Kenyans. If a Kenyan encountered a newspaper report that Obama had been born there, there wouldn’t necessarily be a strong motive to fact-check this claim by digging further. Likewise, if an overeager staffer put this material into their boss’s speech, the boss isn’t likely to have time to fact-check that speech himself or even to raise a question with the staffer over its accuracy. Politicians make speeches all the time. If they questioned every factoid that came their way, they couldn’t function. So they hire the best staff they can and hope for the best. But no staff is infallible etc.

You know this evidence better than I do. If there’s a whole series of Kenyan officials making this assertion, that’s a bit different kettle of fish (OTOH, don’t discount the possibility of what happens in the “telephone game.” One official hearing it from another official might automatically attach credence to the claim in a way that they wouldn’t if they read it in a paper. Then the inadvertent mistruth gets wider and wider circulation etc.).

I am not aware of the sealing Kenyan records story. I’m vaguely familiar with some wild accounts about tracking down a Kenyan BC, but to my knowledge, every single one of these has been shown to be fraudulent. Indeed, none of the Freepers who recently have tried to convince me to consider a Kenyan birth scenario has cited a Kenyan BC as evidence. Since “you” (collectively) a) have vetted all the available evidence carefully; and b) have a strong incentive to put forth a Kenyan BC as evidence when trying to argue for this scenario, I infer from the failure to include any of these various Kenyan BCs on your list of evidence that my very casual impression that all these tales had been debunked apparently is true.

Anyway, if you have a link to the best summary of the “sealed records” story, I’d be interested in reading in. Not having yet done so, I’m not in a position to judge the reliability of such claims.

“From the money end of things, there could have been another source of money, just like there were sources of money for a broke BHO II to travel to Pakistan, Kenya, and Bali - all at points where he was supposedly dead broke. We know he got at least a million (was it 3 million?) in campaign funds from sources he specifically enabled to be untrackable, and they’re claiming he’s planning on “raising” a billion for 2012. BHO Sr’s parents were described as being poor initially, but if I understand correctly they were actually quite wealthy. Correct me if I’m wrong on that.”

We have to distinguish between different time periods. Although details are murky, I don’t doubt Obama’s ability as a young man to tap into resources to bankroll the various trips you describe (I believe his roommate at Occidental and/or Columbia was quite well off, so I’ve always assumed the Pakistan trip was bankrolled by him, for example). After all, his father appears to have done the same simply by being a very promising student. But there’s a world of difference between a 20-something with promise, (in whom an “investment” can be easily imagined to “pay off” for a benefactor or country sponsor) and an infant. Unless we imagine BHO to be a secular equivalent of Jesus Christ—selected at birth to do great things—there’s no reason any of the sources BHO or his father secured assistance from would have had any interest in providing similar support to a single mom and her illegitimately-conceived baby.

As I indicated elsewhere, Mboya’s organization that sponsored airlifts certainly would have had an interest in furthering Sr’s educational pursuits. But any money they diverted to assisting him with “personal matters” such as the freshman girl he’d knocked up within weeks of meeting her was going to be funding they couldn’t give to another Kenyan to come to the U.S. to study. How could they possibly justify such an expenditure? Sr. was a promising student, but at the time this decision had to be made, he hadn’t even been accepted into Harvard, so much of his promise was yet to be firmly established. If he were the president’s son or someone similarly important, perhaps he would have had sufficient “connections” to make bankrolling a trip to Africa a piece of cake. But he was the son of a cook for missionaries in Nairobi—a cook who had 3 wives, by the way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.

In short, this was NOT a family rolling in dough. I believe I elsewhere pointed to an account showing that once Sr. reached Hawaii, he realized the expense of attending school there was much greater than he’d supposed. The money he’d saved to make this possible was expected to run out after only 2 semesters, so he had resigned himself to needing to get a job to support himself through school. If he’d had easy access to funds through a sponsor, none of this would have been necessary. And in that context, to suddenly have the burden of a new wife and infant on his hands wasn’t likely to bring a smile to his face. For all we know, finances were at the root of what apparently quickly became an estranged relationship (”marriage” notwithstanding).

As for BHO’s more recent campaign contributions, once a person reaches that level of national prominence there obviously would be all sorts of interests—foreign or otherwise—who might be happy to grease his palm in exchange for “access.” But this doesn’t mean these sources have been around since he was a student at UH.

“It’s embarrassing to say, but I’m still a bit confused on the timetable for when SAD had to be in Seattle. At first it was said that classes started about 3 weeks after BHO II was born. Then the questions came up as to whether they were distance classes. And last I had heard somebody was saying that the classes didn’t actually start until September. Do you know if we have anything conclusive as to when SAD was actually in Seattle?”

I agree that WND (and maybe others) jumped the gun in claiming that the UW records proved SAD had left within 2 weeks (or “a few” I forget the exact claim) of BHO’s birth. My understanding accords with yours, that classes didn’t actually begin until perhaps the 3rd week of September (9/23 sticks in my mind, but there’s no guarantee that’s accurate). But I’m pretty sure that the first Seattle friend account was from late August, as opposed to September, since that account (or perhaps discussions about it) seemed to emphasize how soon after the birth that had occurred and that Ann didn’t even know how to change diapers yet: hard to believe Ann wouldn’t know how to change diapers after 4-6 weeks, so this suggests a trip to Seattle that occurred sooner than later.

I don’t know that anyone has documented the time-line for registering/enrolling in classes. Especially for a new/entering student, most universities are going to close registration a few weeks before classes so that they have reasonably accurate headcounts and can plan reasonably well. Yes, they have Drop/Add periods, but the point is, this time-line alone might have dictated that Ann be in Seattle by late August to nail down these arrangements, find a suitable place to live, work out child care etc. It would be pretty dicey to leave all that to just 1 week before classes started etc.

So there appears to be a “window” but no bulletproof evidence of when she actually began living in Seattle.

“If what rolling stone said was true about a passport not being necessary for travel to Canada and Mexico at that time, the Canada theory wouldn’t necessarily explain why the refusal to show passport records”

Agreed. That’s definitely a loose end not accounted for by a Vancouver birth. All the evidence points to Ann being in Seattle alone—as opposed to accompanied by Madelyn (who after all had job responsibilities). Also, the very fact she was even taking classes at UW suggests the possibility of estrangement from parents (since after all, she’d lived in their guest cottage for an unknown number of weeks/months in the spring/summer). If everything’s hunky-dory, why get uprooted and start anew at UW?

So it’s conceivable to me that Ann took matters into her own hand and just routinely applied for a passport not realizing she didn’t need it. Also, while passports may not have been needed for day travel or short trips, if Ann was in Canada for an extended period (and I’ve speculated she could have been there for weeks or months), it’s conceivable she DID need a passport, if for no other reason than to ensure she could get back into the U.S. without her identity or citizenship being challenged.

Passport applications DO require you to provide your travel plans/dates etc. So if there is a 1961 application record, it will state the country(ies) she intended to visit. But you probably already knew that.

....I infer from Obama’s behavior that he has something to hide that puts his eligibility for office in question. All the alternative-dad scenarios (Stanley Dunham, Frank Davis, Malcolm X, Seattle Mystery Man) may be embarrassing, but they don’t call into question his constitutional eligibility: quite the contrary, they remove all residual doubts about eligibility.....

I pretty much agree, and would add further that Obama appears to be both a patological liar and a narcissist. He refuses to accept responsibility for his actions and blames others.

.....The latter would be extremely valuable to BHO. So it’s hard for me to imagine that he would forego the benefits of removing the “dual-citizen” cloud AND spend more than $1 million to boot (albeit not his own money) fighting these suits in court merely to spare himself that embarrassment. Any of the alternative-dad scenarios reflect poorly on his mom, not him. He hasn’t hesitated to throw grandma under the bus (even though she raised him during arguably the most important years of childhood). So I don’t think he’d hesitate to throw momma under the bus. He certainly has made no effort to hide the fact that she was unmarried when she got pregnant, that her marriage failed and that in the eyes of many, she essentially abandoned her son at age 10 to free herself to pursue her career aspirations. So preserving her reputation wouldn’t appear to be high on his list of priorities.....

While his paternity could cure his eligibility problem now, two years ago he might have been afraid of being branded a commie when now it is obvious he is one, so in my book its not completely ourside the realm of possibilities.
everything else he blames on others anyway.

.... This leaves birth outside Hawaii. Well, it can’t be Seattle since that too doesn’t create eligibility problems. Due to its proximity to Seattle, its resources for dealing with single mothers (Ann was operationally single even though nominally married) and medical facilities roughly equivalent to the U.S. in quality, Vancouver seems like the most likely place for an Obama birth.
This is consistent with the reports of how quickly Ann Obama was seen in Seattle after the birth, as normally, a doctor wouldn’t have recommended plane travel for an infant before 6 weeks of age http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/air-travel-with-infant/HQ00197.....

The six weeks for an infant to fly has been challenged and is still on the table in my book.

..... She could have gone by ship, but it’s 4300 miles from Honolulu to Seattle. It takes today’s cruise ships 6 days to cover this distance. http://travel.cruisesfrom.com/index.aspx?site=8002&tide=8903037duration Do-able in theory, but again it’s hard to picture a mom doing this with a newborn only 2 weeks old (first Seattle “sighting” was in late August IIRC). It’s far easier for me to envision travel by car (195 miles from Vancouver to Seattle: piece of cake, and not very expensive!)....

ok, but not concrete but it does point to a likely non-Hawaiian birth.

..... By 1961, all Canadian provinces had adopted hospital insurance plans for their residents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada#20th_century. I don’t know what rules were established regarding eligibility for benefits. It seems unlikely they would allow/encourage “drop-in” deliveries by Americans without charging for them. OTOH, we know little of SAD’s whereabouts in spring/summer 1961 except that we know she WASN’T in school and no one yet has surfaced who recalls seeing her pregnant. Thus, it’s conceivable she went to Vancouver in her 5th or 6th month of pregnancy and been there long enough to establish “residency” or otherwise qualify for free care.
Even if she hadn’t, there were facilities such as St. Paul’s Hospital that might have delivered babies very inexpensively or at no charge to single women with no obvious means of support
http://www.providencehealthcare.org/about_history_stpauls1.html........

It certainly merits more digging. To get a B.C. Canada birth records after 1903 requires applying for and getting an exemption for good cause.(or for someone to sneak a peak) I wonder why we haven’t seen any Vancouver BC’s for Obama (yet)?

..... My theory doesn’t hinge on Ann having gotten free care, but it would explain why Vancouver could have been selected over Seattle as the best choice for delivery. If she’d hung out in Seattle prior to delivery, one would think that at least 1 friend would have come forward by now to report that. And it doesn’t make sense to go to Seattle to try and be incognito. She had a much greater assurance of anonymity in Vancouver than Seattle. If she DIDN’T want anonymity, there would be no particular reason to leave Honolulu where she had a built-in family support system etc.,,,

This is where the Kenyan birth theory comes in it provides a motive for her to go to Kenya not Vancouver, To meet the Fockers.

....I won’t beat the Kenyan birth theory to death. Suffice it to say that in light of all the various objections that I’ve already raised about that theory in various posts, a Vancouver birth seems far more plausible/likely......

A Vancouver birth seems more plausible when much weight is given to the transportation part of the problem. It does not address the stories by Kenyan Officials, Race Bannon, The Smith Kenyan BC, Obies family in Kenya, etc.

....I hope my reply warrants a passing grade...If not, I guess I’ve flunked your course...

You passed this part of the test,(hard to grade when the real answer is not know by the teacher so we’ll go with pass/fail) but it is like a diamond shining bright with many different faucets...first the undergraduate test the upper division, then post graduate exams. Hopefully by the end we will have a complete anatomy of the mother of all frauds.

“The six weeks for an infant to fly has been challenged and is still on the table in my book.”

Right, it’s just an MD recommendation. No MD could have literally prohibited her from flying if she was bound and determined to do so (although I don’t know about whether AIRLINES might have had restrictions that would have gotten in the way, especially for a flight measured in thousands of miles, as opposed to a few hundred).

“This is where the Kenyan birth theory comes in it provides a motive for her to go to Kenya not Vancouver, To meet the Fockers.”

If the Fockers weren’t so damned far away, this is definitely an important motive. OTOH, IIRC Sr’s dad was particularly upset about this marriage/birth, whereas Dunhams appeared more accepting of the situation. But I don’t know when in time it was established that Sr’s dad was upset: in theory it could have been aired face-to-face with Ann. But if I were Sr. planning to fly my wife to meet the parents, I would surely check ahead about whether that was OK with them (especially if I’d left a wife behind whom they knew). It’s hard to believe that Sr’s father wouldn’t have figured out he was angry about the situation before Ann arrived. So if Sr. checked and Dad vented, I’m hard put to see why Sr. would want to follow through on what could turn out to be a highly contentious visit.

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