Dean Haskins specifically said that his five-week trip Hawaii --► Arizona --► Texas --► Hawaii --► Virginia was funded by someone else. Even though he pocketed all the $39 payments for admission to the Birther Summit, he didn't take in enough to pay for that one trip, IMHO. I do believe he had the money in the bank to cover the Colin Powell challenge and the Original Newspaper challenge.

Some of them aren't being funded by the big boys. I think some of them are, though. Haskins and Tansey, while both being birther loons, can at least come across as sane to anyone who hasn't had contact before. They'd be a good team to fund, even if they do let Gary Wilmott play.

The poll question is rigged. Of course they receive funding from "some source," whether it's their own HELOCs, their jobs (as if), PayPal buttons, a wealthy husband who actually generates money instead of just squandering it, or shady business endeavors like WND. Money isn't magically appearing from the void.

So there's no way anyone could answer "no" to that question.

AFAIK the ads Kerchner places are inserts. Cheaper than an ad actually printed in the paper, but still not free. I think we figured about $3000 each a couple of years ago. Of course he's been running these for a couple of years now, so somebody is helping. Unless the Moonie Times is doing it for free.

$3,000 an ad? That's proof of a shadowy billionaire or a conspiracy? That's well within the stupid expenditures available to a retired commander of whatever branch Kerchner is from.

The fact is that we don’t know a damn thing about Orly before she started birfing. If someone is funding her we may never know who, but she has spent a boatload of money on this campaign of hers to trash Obama in any way possible. The only group we know Orly had any ties to is AIPAC, which has a discussion thread here:
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1095

Maybe there is something to that, who knows? But even now, other than birfing we still don’t really know anything about her. (Other than that she is a crazy hateful racist bigot) I’ve never seen any evidence of any sort of other life other than the occasional mention of her kids. Does she even have any friends? Not “supporters” but real friends, you know, like the kind you hang out with and love like family? (I doubt it) And yet she’s the one who came out of nowhere and started accusing Obama of having a “hidden life”.

There is no documentation of her history anywhere. She’s not even listed as an alumnus at Hebrew University where she supposedly went to school. Nor is there any documentation of her immigration to Israel or to the U.S. But there is lots of documentation of her spreading her anti-American propaganda in Israel and Russia and any other anti-American entity or news agency that would listen to her because she has always proudly boasted about it all on her website.

Maybe she is being funded by some unfriendly source to smear this country and President Obama. Her disgraceful allegations have certainly been spread far and wide outside this country, and who knows what she gets up to when she goes running off to Israel, or where she may possibly go from there on a non-U.S. passport.

I think if anyone deserved to have their name put on the No-Fly list it should be her. Wouldn’t it be interesting if her name landed on it while she’s over there?

We could definitely do with some 'discovery.' Some pundit pointed out that the Obama administration has been one of the most scandal free in history. Yet, it's hard to imagine that more resources have ever been spent on trying to dig up dirt or to create it when no real dirt could be found. I think we all are girding our loins for the inevitable barrage of last minute propaganda and mud-slinging designed to influence the voters or attempts to keep Dems from voting or having their votes count. We know it's coming. Now, we are seeing the drip, drip, drip of repeatedly debunked claims. Dirty tricks work and they don't cost that much.

Similarly, we can ballpark what it cost Haskins to conduct his little investigation/vacation.

A month's worth of hotel bills at an average of $100/night = $3,000
Airplane fare to Hawaii and then to leapfrog back = $2,000
Actual investigation expenses = Negligible

So that month-long escapade probably only ran up a tab of five or six grand. Even if someone else *did* pay for it, that's not exactly a sum that needs an elaborate justification. And it's not like the Birther faithful are lacking in retirement-age middle-class folks with poor judgment. Like I've mentioned before, one Georgia birther paid $1,800 to fund Lucas Smith's useless certified letters to Congress, and Lucas is the biggest con-man of the whole bunch. It's not hard to fathom someone else paying five grand to a much more professional person like Haskins.

I think you've significantly underestimating Haskins 5 week adventure. I think his expenses alone were upwards of $20,000* and that's not considering he wasn't always alone. Other than his original flights to and from Honolulu, the rest was spur of the moment travel without advance reservations.

Airline fares: $10, 000. Virginia to Honolulu $1000, Honolulu to Phoenix $1000, Phoenix to Dallas $400, Dallas to Honolulu $1000, Honolulu to Virginia $1200.

Hotel: 35 nights - $5000, 20 nights in Phoenix and Texas at $100 a night might be doable, $2000. 15 nights in Honolulu at $200 a night ~ $3000, $100 a night is too low for Honolulu.

Meals: 35 Breakfasts at $10-12, 35 lunches at $15-20, 35 dinners at $40-50 = Min $2300 + tips ( you think the guy tips?) and I think I'm underestimating the cost of eating all meals out.

Transportation: Car rental $2000, 5 weeks in 1 week increments,Hertz Toyota Corolla, doesn't include gas. $400 a week.

Incidentals: $10 a day

* Estimates from Yahoo travel

Funny, those sums add up to $4,600, not $10,000. Where are you getting the extra $5,400?



That's why I said "average." It's possible to get motels in Dallas for $60-80 a night.

Plus, just for kicks, I ran a sample through Orbitz to see what it would cost to fly roundtrip from Virginia to Honolulu and spend 15 nights there. I got offers as cheap as $3,200 for the round-trip ticket AND hotel.



Seriously? You think pegging his food costs at $65-82/day is UNDERestimating? No, this figure is just ridiculously high. Plus, considering the fact that Dean was going to be eating meals anyway, it's absurd to consider his entire food budget for five weeks to be an incurred expense.



OK, car rental is fair enough (even though gas, like food, is an expense that he would've had if he'd been home). But even with your more liberal figures, Dean's total is still more in the $10,000 range, not $20,000. Still not something that demands, as Loh put it, a shadowy billionaire or conspiracy.

BTW, what is the source of the claim that Haskins had an outside benefactor for his trip? And has he said that said benefactor paid for the WHOLE trip, considering that Haskins reported changing his plans mid-trip?

Sorry, right you are.

It's possible, but it's unlikely DeanO stayed at one of them.

That's not what he did.

I was serious. Deano wasn't eating at the MickeyD's. When he visited Sheriff Joe and his buddies in Dallas you don't think they went dutch at the Hardee's do you?

Then you agree it's really at least double what you said before.

Who said "conspiracy"? One person or several individuals giving money to these idiots isn't a conspiracy. The money's coming from somewhere. I happen to think the people giving them money are well-known, and not "shadowy" at all. I think it's people or organizations we're quite familiar with. I think it was Haskins himself who said he had a sponsor for his Hawaii trip.

kimba wrote:

IIRC, he made it clear that someone was sponsoring the Powell challenge and then the reward for the original newspaper from 1961 with the birth announcements. When he was reporting on his Hawai'i trip while he was in Texas, he mentioned that part of the trip was to confer with his benefactors. There was a name that was mentioned at the time, but it may have been an Obot who mentioned it. So, the evidence is from what Haskins posted.

Add to the expenses the costs for Sunahara, his Iraqi dinars and his legal costs for the lawsuits. That lawyer must have racked up some hours putting together his case about the meaning of 'OR.'

No, but it illustrates how one can get two weeks' worth of a hotel in Honolulu for a lot less than $200 a night. Because $200/night for 15 nights would be, by itself, $3000.

Still, I went ahead and ran the query again asking about JUST hotel rooms. And it gave me a bunch of options in the $110-120/day range.



I don't think he was eating at Ruths Chris Steakhouse every night either. And my point still stands that food is a regular cost-of-living expense, not a travel expense.



Not "at least." We have conservative and liberal estimates, ranging from about $7,000 to about $13,000. I initially failed to consider a rental car, and you initially added five grand to airfare.

He did indeed attribute the reward money to an "anonymous benefactor," and while that money was indeed real, it was also never spent.

It's like a guy I tried to take up on his offer of $100,000 reward for showing him Obama's long-form. He had the money (in the form of gold, IIRC; he was a dealer), but it became quickly evident that he had no intention of actually losing it.



But did Haskins ever say that anyone else was footing the bill for his trip? He declined to discuss finances here, but he stated that he'd lost money himself, and was planning on writing off those losses. And I have little doubt that Dean has the money to send himself on a month-long vacation.

IMGO:

1. I don't believe Haskins had the money to pay the $15,000 check. I think he is an inveterate liar.

2. I don't think his vacation cost that much. I think he stayed with friends.

3. All of the birthing we have seen, save only the adverts in the Moonie Times by Kerchner, and Taitz's narcissistic failures, have been very inexpensive. Which is the beauty of birthing. I think Taitz has blown perhaps $100,000 of her community property on her foolishnesses. (Lakin's self-immolation cost him nothing up front, until he realized he was going to lose $2 million in benefits. When he did, he got competent counsel, but it was too late to save himself.)

4. To the extent anyone has "financed" birtherism it has been self-financed. And monetary sanctions will be the only way to stop it. I'm glad Mr. Begley has taken the first step, even if it was done lightheartedly rather than with seriousness of purpose.

But you just said $10,000! Where'd you get $7000 now?

Gosh, you sure do want it to be a lower number! Food purchased while traveling isn't a travel expense? That's silly. The IRS lets you deduct 50% of your meals as travel expense or instead use the standard daily meal allowance, which is $46. That tells us something about what the IRS thinks it costs to eat on the road.

Why are you working so hard to dismiss the idea the birthers are getting help?

I see birther financing as an aberration of religious mass marketing. The grifters are always entreating their "faithful" that just a few more dollars will achieve their salvation or restore their "White" House. They don't really need a great benefactor, just a pulpit.

There's no direct evidence they are receiving money. Given the rough estimates of what has been spent, an application of Occam's Razor suggests self financing.

We know they're not self-financed. They take donations. DeanO says he has a benefactor and he stopped to see him in Texas. Then after conferring with his benefactor, he went back to Honolulu to do some more "investigating". You'd assume with a fresh infusion of benefactor cash to spend. I think others have benefactors, too. For example, altough I agree Orly uses some of her own money, I think the majority is donations and that's why $20,000 in sanctions didn't even give her pause. It wasn't mostly her money. It's possible the help is coming in as $30 donations by folks at home, but I think there's larger donations, thousands or tens of thousands, to all our favorite birthers from wealthier folks wanting to hinder Obama. Billionaires don't always give in the millions. We speculate there's only hundreds of truly loyal birthers, so the money to keep Orly, Farah, Corsi, P&E, Kerchner, Kreep going isn't coming from them.

The birthers have gotten a lot of mileage out of the amounts they've spent. If I were a wealthy Republican who'd do about anything to keep Obama from getting elected, I'd see birthism as a pretty good investment and maybe toss them a few grand.

They take donations. They're not self-funded.

They do not take in donations in a meaningful amount.

Even if the trip only cost $10,000, it wasn't paid by $39 tickets to the Dumbit.

And I strongly suspect he DID have $15,000 in the bank in case Colin Powell did something stupid.

I'll be the first to admit that millions are not being paid to birthers by Kochs or whoever. But there are a few indications that someone is funding them that are highly suspicious.

Another one that bothered me is Pasture Manning showing up at the Lakin trial with two bodyguards or assistants or whatever. The guy runs a tiny church that doesn't seem to have a lot of members, in a poor neighborhood. But he showed up at the trial looking like money. Maru would remember more details, but if they had separate rooms and stayed the whole trial, that's nearing $1,000 or more, just to be seen there. Also remember that his previous project was to drive all the white people out of Harlem. Now he's doing something that alienates about 94% of the blacks in Harlem, and he suddenly loves him some white people. Does YouTube interviews with Corsi and every other moron in the birther movement.

Who paid him to change his mind?

Really? You know this how?

What's the definition of "meaningful"?

To Dean Haskins, 3rd rate musician from a tiny town in the sticks of western Virginia, $10,000 is money. To Pasture Manning it's money. To Dr. Hate, it would turn her life around.

For Orly, drop in the bucket. It's all relative and we're all related.