Tag Archives: Hawaii

May 23, 2013 · 10:03 AM

TIME Exclusive: President Obama’s 1979 Prom Photos

From left: Greg Orme, Kelli Allman, Barack Obama and Megan Hughes at Allman’s parents’ house in Honolulu.

Wait for it…wait for it, I gauarantee you Obama haters and conspiracy nuts will have a field day deciphering this evidence of Obama’s youth activities.

Time

This article appears in this week’s magazine underneath the title, “Obama’s Grand Old Party.” 

Tucked away in someone else’s shoe box of adolescent artifacts, there might be a picture of you in garish clothes and with an outdated ‘do, your arm around a high school squeeze. The President of the United States is no different. These previously unpublished photos, obtained exclusively by TIME from Obama’s schoolmate Kelli Allman (née McCormack), show a 17-year-old Barack Obama on the night of his senior prom.

Barry spent his days at the Punahou School in Hawaii studying, shooting hoops and goofing off with his friends. Greg Orme, a fellow varsity basketball player, was Obama’s constant companion. “They were like brothers,” says Allman. On prom night, the pair double-dated. Obama and his date Megan Hughes, a student at the Hawaii School for Girls at La Pietra, joined Orme at Allman’s house, where the two couples sipped champagne before going to the dance and then an after-party. “It was a really fun, happy time. We were all cracking up, and everyone was smiling,” says Allman. “It was pretty typical from there out as far as what happens at prom: the dinner and the dancing and the photos.”

Millions of American teenagers will go to proms this year. Their photos are more likely to be stored on Facebook than in a shoe box. But it’s fun to imagine that in one of those pictures, there’s a girl in a pastel dress or a lanky guy in a white sport coat who will end up becoming the leader of the free world.

Barack Obama in an exclusive prom photo.

Left: Kelli Allman‘s OAHUAN 1979 Yearbook.
Right: Obama wrote the above note in Allman’s yearbook at the end of his senior year in 1979.

Barack Obama in an exclusive prom photo.

From left: Greg Orme, Kelli Allman, Barack Obama and Megan Hughes at Allman’s parents’ house in Honolulu.

 

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March 28, 2013 · 9:02 PM

North Korea leader orders rocket units on standby to hit U.S. bases: KCNA

AFP Photo / Pedro Ugarde

The grand chess game begins…

Reuters

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un orders the country’s rocket units to be on standby to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific in an emergency meeting on Friday after the United States flew Stealth bombers in a show of force to Pyongyang.

The North’s official KCNA news agency said Kim signed off on the orders at a midnight meeting of top generals and “judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation.”

“He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets of the KPA, ordering them to be standby for fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in South Korea.”

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January 23, 2013 · 1:09 AM

Amazing video of injured dolphin seeking help from scuba divers

Dolphins are my favorite sea creatures.  When I ran across this video, I simply had to share why they are my favorite.  The humans in this video are the coolest, ever.  Enjoy…

AmericaBlog

This video of a dolphin in need is really something on so many levels.

diver helps dolphin

diver helps dolphin

It turns out that the dolphin had fishing line and a hook stuck on one of its fins, so it approached a group of divers who were watching manta rays at night near Kona, Hawaii. Fortunately one of the professional divers was able to help remove some of the fishing line that was restricting the movement of the dolphin, though in the end they were unable to remove the hook.

There are plenty of warnings at the beginning (the divers are professional so don’t try this at home), followed by the dolphin swimming around the group, with the untangling action starting around the 3:30 mark.

You won’t believe how calm and trusting the dolphin is with the diver, who patiently cuts away the line.

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December 23, 2012 · 12:40 AM

Mele Kalikimaka Mr. President!

I’m happy that the president and the First Family were able to get away to Hawaii for Christmas…

SmartyPants

Its been a tough week for all of us – no one more so than our President. As I’ve watched him battle the tears over the loss of our babies only to have to switch gears to take on the lunatic fringe in Congress, I’ve been spending some time thinking about how grateful I am that he is willing to represent us by taking this all on. I can’t imagine another human being I’d rather have in the White House at this moment in history.

And so, with the press conference completed, he’ll be heading off to Hawaii for a much-deserved break (I hope!) I have nothing more to give him as a token of my gratitude than to wish him “Mele Kalikimaka.”

Oh, and one more thing…

I’d like to once again repeat something Alice Walker wrote to President Obama shortly after he was elected.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone…

Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

 

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September 14, 2012 · 8:38 AM

Kansas GOP officials consider removing Obama from November ballot

Isn’t Kansas the state in which the POTUS’ mother was born? Shame on Kansas!

The Raw Story

The Kansas State Objections Board is considering removing President Barack Obama from the November ballot because of doubts over his place of birth, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

The panel of Republicans, which consists of Secretary of State Kris Kobach, Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, received a complaint from a resident who claimed Obama was not a natural born citizen and therefore ineligible to be president.

Obama has been dogged by questions about his eligibility to serve as President of the United States since 2008. Some of the so-called “birthers” believe Obama is not a natural born citizen because his father was a British subject.

“As for Mr. Obama’s citizenship, there are many doubts,” said Joe Montgomery, who filed the ballot challenge. “Doing the right thing can be hard and unpopular.”

Courts have ruled that anyone born within the borders of the United States is a natural born citizen under the U.S. Constitution, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.

The Kansas State Objections Board has requested documentation of Obama’s birth from Hawaii, Arizona and Mississippi.

In an attempt to quiet the “birther” conspiracies, Obama released his long-form birth certificate last year. It confirmed what his other birth certificate released in 2008 said: the president was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961.

But Montgomery claims “there is substantial evidence showing that much of Mr. Obama’s alleged birth certificates have been forged or doctored, and have not been confirmed as legally valid, true and accurate.”

Hawaii officials have insisted the birth certificate released by Obama is authentic.

[H/T: TPM]

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August 25, 2012 · 12:12 AM

7 Birthers Speaking At The Republican Convention

Speechless…

Think Progress

Mitt Romney’s invocation of birtherism on Friday took his campaign to a new level of involvement with the bogus idea that President Obama is actually Kenyan-born and therefore ineligible to serve as Commander-in-Chief. But that dog-whistle theory has already been embraced by many major Republicans with whom Romney has long been happy to consort.

Indeed, as Republicans head down to Tampa for their convention next week, they are preparing to see a veritable festival of politicians who have dabbled in — or fully embraced — birtherism.

Here are the members of the birther bunch who will be speaking in Tampa next week:

1. Donald Trump. The famed billionaire/birther king Donald Trump has been the most vociferous — and most closely connected to Romney — person alleging that the President wasn’t born in the United States.

2. Actress Janine Turner. The Northern Exposure star who has her own conservative radio show wrote a long screed titled “Reasoning ‘Kenyan Born.’” In it, she complains that anyone who questions the president’s citizenship is deemed a racist: “If this were a legal case in court, [Obama's] book bio stating that Obama was ‘born in Kenya’ would be taken into consideration.”

3. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens. During a town hall captured on video  (at 3:5), Olens said, “You know the state of Hawaii says he’s produced a certified birth certificate… so on one hand I have to trust the state of Hawaii follows the laws. On the other hand it would be nice for the President to say, here it is, I have a copy.”

4. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. On one radio appearance during Huckabee’s bid for president, the former governor said, “I would love to know more [about where Obama was born]. What I know is troubling enough.” He later walked back the statement.

5. Florida Gov. Rick Scott. In 2010, the Orlando Sentinel reported than an audience member at one of Scott’s campaign events asked “what he would do about President Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ and whether he could legally appear on the 2012 ballot in Florida.” Scott responded, “I’ll have to look into it.”

6. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The Vice-Chairman of the House Republican Conference once told reporters “Oh, I’d like to see the documents.”

7. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Jindal was willing to sign a “birther” bill into law. It would have required all presidential candidates to release their birth certificate in order to qualify for a spot on the state’s ballot.

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June 11, 2012 · 11:55 AM

Supreme Court Refuses To Hear ‘Birther’ Argument…Again

Birthers

Birthers will never give up.  Long after President Obama is gone from office they will still try to “prove” he was an “illegitimate President”…

News One

The Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal challenging PresidentBarack Obama‘s U.S. citizenship and his eligibility to serve as commander-in-chief.

Without comment, the high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Alan Keyes,Wiley Drake, and Markham Robinson.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the challengers did not have legal standing to file the lawsuit.

The U.S. Constitution says only “a natural born citizen” may serve as president. The challengers allege that Obama, whose father was Kenyan, was born in that African country, rather than in Hawaii. They claim his Hawaii birth certificate is a forgery.

Hawaii officials have repeatedly verified Obama’s citizenship.

Keyes and Drake ran against Obama on the American Independent Party ticket and Robinson serves as the party’s chairman.

Stay tuned…

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May 22, 2012 · 3:01 PM

Hawaii turns tables on Arizona Secretary of State’s birther requests

AZ Sec of State Ken Bennett via screen grab

The Raw Story

Hawaiian officials have apparently had enough of your requests for President Barack Obama’s birth certificate and they’re not afraid to tell you where to get off, even if you are Arizona’s Secretary of State Ken Bennett or a special delegation sent by Maricopa County’s controversial “Sheriff Joe.”

Talking Points Memo obtained emails yesterday detailing the occasionally testy exchanges between Bennett and Jill T. Nagamine, Hawaii’s Deputy Secretary of State.  Bennett, who is a co-chair of former Massachusetts governor and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s Arizona campaign, announced last Thursday that “it’s possible” President Obamamay not appear on the Arizona ballot in November. TPM filed a public records request on Monday to obtain the correspondence between Bennett’s office and Hawaiian officials, and the results are hugely entertaining.

It appears that the State of Hawaii’s first response to Bennett’s request of President Obama’s birth certificate was to quickly dash out a letter on March 17 with a series of hyperlinks, including one to the Hawaii Department of Health’s website and three links to Hawaii’s Revised Statutes concerning the confidentiality of vital records.

The state of Hawaii has gone to great lengths to handle the years of backlogged requests by so-called “birthers” looking for the president’s birth certificate. In spite of the White House’s decision last year to release the president’s long-form birth certificate, the Hawaii Department of Health is still receiving an average of 50 new requests each month.

Continue reading here…

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· 12:46 PM

Sherrif Joe Sends Birther ‘Investigators’ To Hawaii On Taxpayer Dime, Including Sheriff’s Deputy

I’m  amused by groups in the Tea Party or GOP who have looked for almost six years to find some dirt on Barack Obama.  It appears that the POTUS is just a normal, everyday American.

At what point do these Obama Derangement Syndrome characters realize that there’s no smoking gun out there?

Addicting Info

Joe Arpaio,Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, and one of the leading lights of the tragically dim ‘birther movement,’ has enlisted a sworn deputy to act as “security” in Hawaii for his ‘investigation.’ Arpaio has made a lot of noise in the past about his ‘Cold-Case Posse,’ and it’s supposed reliance on volunteers and donated funds, but now his investigation appears to need the use of a taxpayer-funded deputy.

What’s more, the Maricopa Sheriff’s Office has also provided the cost of airfare and hotel rooms for the deputy, as well as ‘volunteer posse member’ Mike Zullo. Arpaio says he expects to reimburse those costs, but why should Arizona taxpayers be expected to fund any part of this ridiculous vendetta?

Aside from all the usual motivations that most ‘birthers’ bring to the table, Sheriff Joe has an extra incentive in trying to displace President Obama; Arpaio’s administration is under investigation by the Justice Department for a variety of offenses that, of course, include racial discrimination.

And while it’s not unusual to find strains of racism at the heart of the movement, it’s not every birther that the Justice Department investigates.

It seems as though Arpaio is throwing all his (and now, Arizona’s) resources into some kind of 11th-hour, last-ditch B-movie quality conspiracy investigation that will show the president to be a foreign pretender. And cast himself as humble Sheriff Joe, the hero that saved the day. And while he contends that his investigations aren’t politically motivated, he has also claimed that they were all privately funded.

Arpaio contends that the deputy is a legitimate expenditure, “It’s one deputy, so what? We have security issues, too, that I can’t got into. For six months we were not spending any money. When you’re doing investigations sometimes things change, you put more resources into it.”

He also insists that the deputy is not expected to make any arrests saying, “He’s just a liaison to give advice if needed. He’s not doing anything. The posse’s been doing the research.”

So, now that law enforcement resources have been brought in, can we assume that Joe is that much closer to arresting Obama?

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May 19, 2012 · 12:07 AM

Arizona’s Top Election Official Goes Birther, Threatens To Keep Obama Off The Ballot

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett (R)

Let the games begin…

Think Progress

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett — the state’s top election official — made an appearanceon a local radio show yesterday in which he threatened to keep President Obama’s name off of the state’s November ballot unless the state of Hawaii provides his official birth certificate.

Bennett is the latest Republican elected official to call into question Obama’s place of birth in recent months. His comments were first flagged by the site White House Dossier:

BENNETT: First of all, I’m not playing to the birthers, I’m not a birther. I believe that the president was born in Hawaii, or at least I hope he was…Hawaii has a special provision in their law that allows other government officials from other states to request what’s called a verification in lieu of a certified copy of a birth certificate. So I’m not asking for the certified copy of the birth certificate at all…I was frankly expecting that they would very quickly and very simply say ‘yes.’ Eight weeks later, they haven’t said, I can’t seem to get them to say yes.

In fact, Hawaii said “yes” over a year ago. Last April, Obama released a certified copy of his long form birth certificate to the public. And while that did nothing to quell the furor of birthers like Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, it more than meets Bennett’s verification requirement.

And yet Bennett is insisting on still more costly and time-consuming work by the state of Hawaii to verify they have the original document on hand. The reason for his suspicion? Arpaio’s sham investigation into the copy released by President Obama raised sufficient questions:

BENNETT: When Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s posse released a press conference a few week ago, or a month ago or whenever it was, that the birth certificate posted on the White House website might be fraudulent, I started getting, as you might imagine, literally over 1,200 emails from people saying ‘well that’s proof, you should require the president to produce the original of his birth certificate in order to be on the ballot of Arizona.’

Arpaio’s press conference more closely resembled an SNL parody than a serious investigation, and it was widely ridiculed for employing faulty “science” and drawing wild conclusions based on little more than technological anomalies.

Bennett is hardly the first person to propose removing Obama from the general election ballot this fall, but as secretary of state, he is in a position to actually act on those threats. Bennett’s insistence that he is not a birther and is simply doing his due diligence as the state’s top election official is a distinction without difference, as it ignores the fact that he is accepting as possibility that Obama’s publicly available birth certificate is fraudulent.

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