Can't wait to read this new best seller! I hear the NY Times and the magazine New Yorker will do a review of the book.
Posted on 07/14/2008 12:42:34 PM PDT by pissant
Wikipedia used to have "Obama, Jr." and now has changed to "Obama II" in the wake of the COLB. (hat tip Larwyn). Over at JOM
Is there anything in Obama's books? I notice that the NYT back in 1990 referred to both father and son as simply "Barack Obama."
An excerpt from a noteworthy 2007 Obama speech:
There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma, Alabama.
I wonder what news organization was the first to use "Jr." and whether there is any use of "II," by the press or Obama, prior to the COLB.
There's been a good deal of back and forth - a lot of the back though didn't come forth in the comment section of this post: FORENSIC EXPERT: "the [birth] certificate is still a horrible forgery". If, Obama had his original Birth certificate it would look like this (although in his book "Dreams From My Father, Obama wrote:“I discovered this article, folded away among my birth certificate and old vaccination forms, when I was in high school.”)
Mitchell Langbert is getting stonewalled on his FOIA request for a copy of Obama's COLB form the Public Information Office in Hawaii. Please read it all - the letters are there. Hawaii knows the documents are fake so why not release the original - who are they protecting? Whose side are they on?
I have previously requested a copy of Barack Obama's birth certificate. Janice Okubo, Public Information Office of the Communications office of the State of Hawaii, responding on July 3, has chosen to refuse to provide a copy of the birth certificate. This blog consists of three parts. First, I quote Ms. Okubo's letter, dated July 3, 2008, verbatim. Her letter responds to my inquiry under the Freedom of Information Act. Although Ms. Okubo points out that the Freedom of Information applies to the federal government and not the states, most states, including Hawaii, have similar statutes. With respect to birth certificates, though, there is a separate section of the Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) that Ms. Okubo cites, HRS § 338-18. The link that Ms. Okubo provides in her hard copy snail mail letter respecting § 338-18 was dead when I tried to use it, but I obtained a copy of HRS § 338-18 from the Lexis-Nexis data base available from New York University's Bobst library. In addition, I obtained information on Hawaii's Uniform Information Practices Act from the State of Hawaii Website. In the second part of this blog, I respond to Ms. Okubo by drafting two letters, one a response to Chiyome Fukino, Director of Health, Ms. Okubo's superior, with a copy to Ms. Okubo and Governor Linda Lingle (R-HI), and also a letter to Barack Obama requesting that he send me a letter authorizing me to represent him in obtaining a copy of his birth certificate in the interest of avoiding accusations of political gamesmanship and manipulation. In the third section I copy the relevant sections from § 338-18 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes for your reference. I also quote from the State of Hawaii Website about its "Uniform Information Law" booklet.
It is evident that, Ms. Okubo's letter notwithstanding, § 338-18 DOES NOT PROHIBIT the State of Hawaii from making Mr. Obama's birth certificate public for three reasons. First, because he is a presidential candidate the public has a vital interest in Mr. Obama's birth certificate. The statute specifically permits divulging birth certificate information to anyone who has a vital interest in the information.
Second, the State of Hawaii Department of Health is granted the authority to fashion its own regulations about providing birth certificate information, and given the national importance of Mr. Obama's birth certificate, the question needs to be asked why the Hawaii Health Department has fashioned rules that contradict its own public law § 338-18 and its own Open Records Law.
Third, although the statute includes a list of persons who are entitled to obtain a copy of the birth certificate, it does not anywhere indicate that the list is exhaustive or exclusive. If the drafters of § 338-18 had meant the list to be exhaustive and exclusive they could have said so, but they did not. Therefore, Ms. Okubo misconstrues the law she claims to enforce.
AJ called out Techdude, expert in the field of forensic digital forgery examination in a ridiculously titled post: How 9-11 Helped Cause The Obama Birth Certificate Silliness. The thing I don't understand is why doesn't AJ wait for this expert's full report which we have emphatically made clear would be released shortly. But no, AJ digs bottom, keeps digging.
Anyway, things got even crazier as the fringe kept grasping to save their conspiracy theory from the dustbin of history. When a poster at Kos took the image of the COLB and doctored it using MacPaint, the junior sleuths were at it again claiming this doctored image was actually the source of the Kos image (and a companion one on the Obama campaign site). I debunked that fantasy in the links above, and a forensic document expert at Atlas Shrugs confirmed my conclusions, while simultaneously creating the next myth of a clear forgery. The mock-up, known as the Opendna image, is of much lower resolution and cannot be the source of the other two images.
You can go to the last two posts above to see my conclusions, but I found the last theory at Atlas Shrugs to verge on the stupid. Sorry, but as the options for keeping the myth alive died out, the 'logic' to find one more way to salvage it went well into the bizarre. Techdude, the computer forensic expert at Atlas Shrugs, noted the glaringly obvious fact that a Sep 2002 COLB for one Ms Decosta was dramatically different from the Jun 2007 COLB for Barrack Obama. And they are different, but the reason why is quite interesting.
And our digital forensic expert in residence (Techdude) teaches A J the ABCs in this lesson. HIS FULL REPORT WILL FOLLOW IN A DAY OR SO:
Let's not resort to name calling, folks.. AJ is correct on several of his assumptions such as the OpenDNA images came after the KOS image and that there was a change in the COLB certificates between the Decosta and the KOS versions. However I have been using a half dozen separate Hawaiian COLBs issued over a 6 year period all the way through 2008 - some hi-res digital scans and some sitting on my desk (real ones) as comparison specimens. And once again to summarize - none of them match the security border of the KOS image.
Unlike AJ I just happened to have been lucky enough to have had more than just the Decosta image to work with so that I am able to see the progression of the document modifications through time. (I also called Hawaii and talked to them about it) But f rom AJ's point of view his observation would be correct having not seen a 2006, other 2007's, or 2008 COLBs. I also realize that there has been some confusion and I am not basing my analysis on the border itself but on the analysis of the actual overall modifications made to the KOS image. The border just happened to be what caught my attention in the first place. Long story short the KOS image is made up of several discrete layers (changes) that can be viewed by using advanced image analysis techniques. [geek alert] Any recent changes made to a JPEG are for lack of a better word "recorded" by the individual 8x8 pixel cells that make up the JPEG. By measuring the differences in error rates and performing wavelet and PCA analysis you can actually show the individual modifications. Mix that with basic observational analysis and metadata extraction and you can form a more complete picture. In the case at hand the KOS COLB was not just simply scanned into Photoshop and a box placed over the certificate number and then exported for the web. The original scan has been saved multiple times, the text and the borders have both been modified, and the background image (the paper) may be the only thing still "real" in the image. Unfortunately there is no way to know what the original state of the document was (you can not bring things back from the dead at least I can’t) but it is not in the same state as the original scan. The best I can do is show you what changes were made with an estimate as to order in which they were modified. Why they were made and who made them is not my concern. While AJ and I may poke fun at each other it is not in a mean spirited way. And on a serious note I would like to get AJ’s take on the analysis techniques I have been using. A whitepaper presentation by Dr. Neal Krawtz on which some of my methods and algorithms are based on can be found here and one by Jessica Fridrich et al here. So everyone keep your shirts on - I am writing up the full report and it will be done as soon as I have the time with all of the explicit details and lots of geeky stuff tossed in for good measure. I still need to finish capturing screenshots, resize them a bit, and then put together a section of the report so you can all do the same experiments at home using some freely available analysis tools.
But on a side note if AJ or anyone else has any questions for me feel free to post them. I will answer anything you ask to the best of my abilities but you might want to wait a few more days so you can read the entire report - so far just explaining the methodology and the science behind them has put it over a dozen typed pages (I obviously also need to edit them down a bit). It may have to be posted in parts at this rate.
P.S. - For giggles I also used the same analysis method against McCains posted COLB...it is not modified (are you shocked?) and tossed it into the report for good measure. I also added in a few known modified images so you can see how the process works.
The plot thickens and Google gets into the act. bvw asked in the comment section why Google puledl all or nearly all Obama and Decosta birth cert images from it's image search results over the weekend? Swordmaker researched it -- Google has scrubbed their images of Obama's birth certificate. For those of you that captured the image DO NOT DELETE THEM:
I have discovered that as of this evening (not sure when it occurred) that Google Image search no longer has ANY of the disputed Barack Obama Birth Certificate images in its index. Articles are still present but after searching over 980 image returned by the search Barack Obama "Birth Certificate" not one single version, blank, filled in, or otherwise, was in the index. Google has made them disappear. Articles on Obama's BC are still there but images that can be used to check the pro or con of the arguments about authenticity are now not to be found. In addition, a couple of quite similar images are linked to sites where they simply do not, nor never did exist. One in particular appears the same as the BHO Birth Certificate that Google claims is from FreeRepublic.com. The image is actually an Hawaiian Marriage Certificate and is linked to a comment about the Birth Certificates that never had an image—nor is there any marriage certificate in any of the 333 comments on the FR thread. Somebody is making the birth certificate images disappear. If you can't trust the librarian, how can you find the books in the library—or even if the books exist? Somebody is playing games.
Vanity: Google buries disputed Barack Obama Birth Certificates - they are gone from index
And then of course, there are the other birth certificates in in this curious tale of the charlatan's COLB:....a birth certificate from the Kenyan city of Mombasa registering the birth of Barack Obama Jr. on August 4, 1961.
June 5, 2008 -Obama is not eligible to be President
"WMR's intelligence sources in Africa are reporting that amid the post-election turmoil wracking Kenya, a three-person team (including a possible Korean-American woman) arrived in Nairobi last week and began asking questions about Barack Obama's father, the late Barack Obama, Sr. The team also inquired about the Senator Obama Secondary School in Nyangoma-Kogelo in northwestern Kenya, the area where Obama's father, an ethnic Luo, hailed and where his grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango, still lives."
Why not? What's to fear?
It now appears that this same team traveled to Mombasa and dug up a certificate registering the birth of Barack Obama Jr. to his father, a Kenyan citizen, and mother, an American citizen. The GOP hopes to make the claim that Senator Obama is not eligible to become President of the United States because he was born in a foreign country, or, at the very least, plant the seed in the voters' minds that Obama is a foreigner even if the charge is false.
GOP operatives are already trying to make political hay out of the federal conviction on June 4 of Chicago Democratic fundraiser Tony Rezko on 16 24 corruption charges. The Republicans are attempting to show that Rezko had close links to Obama although the probe was more closely connected to the administration of Illinois Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich From the Wayne Madsen Reort (a left wing blog no less)
And just to muck things up a bit, just to give you an indication of just what kind of shady invidual we are dealing with:
he could be CITIZEN OF INDONESIA!!.....
Furthermore, it is common practice in many US states to edit such secondary certificates to account for name-changes, sex-changes (ha, that would be a good story!), updated info (such as a newly identified father etc.). In other words, if he has changed his name, he could request that this ID reflect that change.
This just raises more doubts about Obama. What on Earth is his problem?
How is it possible that not one reporter has asked him if he is a citizen of any other country?
While Obama has shared his extensive obsessions with Africa and his skin color, no-one has paid attention to reports that he was listed as an Indonesian citizen at school, and that he traveled on an Indonesian passport. Is their any validity to these reports? You'd think inquiring minds would want to know. But no. I guess that would just be expressing far too much curiosity about a virtual unknown who wants to be the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth.
...nice tough.
Striking resemblance. LOL
At that very moment, a registered voter in Hawaii would have, in my opinion, the right to challenge under Hawaii law against a candidate who might be unqualified factually to appear on the Hawaii ballot as a candidate for President. The claim would be based on a combination of state law and the requirements in the US Constitution.
It seems to me that an Hawaii judge, with the critical evidence available from a division of Hawaii officials, would be compelled by circumstance to order the public release of the official documents concerning the circumstances of Obama's birth.
Congressman Billybob
First three in the series, "American Government: The Owner's Manual" are here, and also on FR
I’m already in pre-order!
:)
I want it now!
Boot The Toot!
Just a Kenyan-born ba$tard?
I thought the Selma march was in 1965? Obama was born in 1961 if you can believe anything we’ve been told about this man.
That’s ok. We have a picture claiming to be of Obama Jr. on another thread where it is claimed he is 10 years old. Problem is, the building (airport) the picture was taken in was razed in 1965.
LOL
Maybe...just thinking out loud...but wouldn’t it be crazy if,as this all plays out where at the last minute the Messiah is declared to be ineligible,and so HILLARY jumps in to fill the spot....
“Smokescreen/Red Herring alert. Obama will use the illegitimacy angle to draw attention from the fact that his BC is a forgery and that he is not a natural-born citizen and is ineligible to be president”
Bingo, we finally got a winner here, folks!
“Deuce-trick, unfoiled” Of course it is possible to be both illegitimate and ineligible simoultaneously.
The empty suit is totally empty! What a resume for a presidential contender. Hillary is going to throw Obama under her bus at the convention.
Well, no. The fellow's three "arguments" for why Hawaii is "wrong" are pretty laughable. This is a guy who is grasping at straws.
For example, consider the author's alleged "vital interest" in getting his mitts on the birth certificate. Well, Our Author is certainly an interested fellow. But "vital interest" is a term reserved for more official needs than those of some blogger on the internet. Even if we agree that Obama's birth certificate should be inspected by a competent and honest party, there is no compelling argument for making that certificate itself available to the general public. The public's "vital interest" extends no further than a determination that Obama does, or does not, meet the Constitutional "natural-born citizen" requirement. They don't need to inspect the document to get that kind of determination.
In addition, one gets the impression that the author believes that Obama's birth certificate is somehow less entitled to protection than his own would be. I guess he's never heard of things like identity theft....
Finally, there's this little gem: although the statute includes a list of persons who are entitled to obtain a copy of the birth certificate, it does not anywhere indicate that the list is exhaustive or exclusive.
That's just plain ridiculous.
Obama needs to change his name back to Barry Soetero. He looks nothing like Obama,Sr.
The author you are referring to is not the author of this piece, FWIW. She is quoting that author, though. But I agree with him nevertheless. Those running for President must present valid credentials to the American people when valid questions are raised.
That's quite true. Nevertheless, whoever wrote those three "reasons" has presented a patently ridiculous line of argument.
There is NO reason for Hawaii to mail off a copy of anybody's birth certificate to some nitwit in the blogsphere.
I think a stake through the heart would work in that coffin.....hehehe....
I agree as no one wants their birth certificate or any numbers of their SSN disclosed, especially the last four to anyone without a need to know.
Certainly the FEDS know if he is legit or not?.
I would not put my birth certificate on the Internet nor my DD-214.
Many questions about the Obamunist. But I disagree that LGF is the be all end all of the forgery debate. They’ve been left in the dust on this one.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.