Posted on 11/15/2008 6:48:02 PM PST by palmer
It's apparent that a combination of fervent believers and a small number of psychopaths and/or infiltrators have dominated the birth certificate discussion. The early evidence was in their favor and everyone should have been skeptical of the low res images on Kos, smears and politifact. The new evidence is not and is not being addressed objectively.
But photo #5 (and some of the others) is a genuine photograph of an artifact. It was not created in photoshop. That doesn't mean photoshop was not involved. A plausible set of steps is
1. Scan a real COLB including the border
2. Import into photoshop and change the text to Obama's text
3. Print the result onto the cross hatched paper (could be forged separately)
4. Obtain a embossing seal and apply it to the printout 5. Fold it as if it came from an envelope and display it to the factcheck photographer.
Another plausible scenario is someone in the Hawaii office did all the forging but on the official equipment and using the official seal. Another possibility is someone stole a seal and sold it to a forger. It is certainly possible for a forger to make a seal using the right equipment (probably a laser etcher).
The Kenya trip meme seemed to turn into an established fact in early July when proposed by null and void and properly ridiculed. Even into November null and void can only repeat her hypothesis (a honeymoon) apparently unwilling or unable to embellish it further.
Polarik surrounds himself with a number of true believers and useful idiots. The useful idiots are the ones who validate or praise his analysis while obviously not knowing anything about it. The true believers have convinced themselves that Obama was not born in Honolulu and are unable to evaluate the evidence objectively.
In their favor, the true believers have established that Obama has potential Indonesian citizenship (courtesy of Soetoro) as well as potential Kenyan citizenship (courtesy of Obama Sr). These are true regardless of where Obama was born. For the former the Kenyan citizenship would have to be activated by Obama. For the latter, Soetoro would have had to apply to make Obama an Indonesian citizen, it does not happen automatically via adoption.
The bottom line for Polarik is he has yet to address the certificate linked above. He has promised to do this for weeks now and is instead disseminating and repeating his various diatribes against Obama. My guess based on his past behavior is that he will release a rehash of the evidence against the old scan (Kos, smears, politifact) with a bit of new verbiage against the factcheck photos. He will properly point out some oddities in some of the photos while ignoring the obvious salient features in the decent photos such as number 5.
He and I have already argued about the seal (embossing) in number 5 and he claims it is a perfect circle (therefore forged). I showed that it wasn't http://i433.photobucket.com/albums/qq51/palmer2/circle.jpg and he replied with a very similar result except he used some edge detection first. He obviously just fools with some tools, but doesn't obtain any useful results. When it comes to image analysis he is a dabbler, not an expert.
With cover from his defenders he establishes a "sensitive" personality claiming that he is being ruthlessly attacked. He says that as a result he will stop posting on the certificate issue when he is done with his final writeup. I don't know if that's a real sensitivity or faked, but even if it is faked there are thousands more that will step into his shoes if he disappears.
That thread and others contain useful nuggets about other Obama problems. There are alternative threads that speak to real evidence although some of those get beaten down by the Polarik army. Polarik's followers also use Freepmail to spread gossip about posters like myself and allegedly (according to them) posted about me on another forum.
That is all good. The more publicity I get on this particular issue, the better. But I remain concerned that FreeRepublic will have the appearance of a conspiracy site because only a rather intensive conspiracy could produce the evidence photographed by Factcheck.
I am also concerned that Factcheck and others might be deliberately planting poor quality evidence in an attempt to hook in the Polariks of the world and their followers. That would not necessarily require a conspiracy although I admit it has the flavor of one. It is to the liberal opposition's benefit to keep as many people on false trails as possible not just to waste their time but to portray them as unhinged. That result was detrimental in the last election and will be detrimental in 2010 and 2012.
IMO of course.
FreeRepublic has gone downhill in more ways than just the birth certificate issue. I've been visiting for over 5 1/2 years but it's starting to seem like it's not a good use of time.
The old posters who used to debate conservative ideas using truth and logic have melted away and the site has become conspiracy theory central. Some people have mentioned the "crypto-racist" remarks on many threads and that's a fair criticism. It used to be that questionable news stories that couldn't be supported would be shot down but now they are justified as "stirring the pot".
One thing that used to make FR exciting was that there seemed to be some genuine experts here from almost every field but I get the feeling that a lot of these people have left. The remaining posters keep trying to relive the triumph of the Dan Rather document incident but that was based on incontrovertible facts and so much of what appears here now is based on chains of speculation.
Response of the day!
FactCheck has shown itself to be dumb as well as deceitful. They did not get the significance of the Certification Number -- that it contained the birth year, which if it was not 1961, then Obama would have been nailed right away. They brushed aside my research on the lack of colored pixels between the letters, by calling them "pixel halos that were articfacts of the scanning process."
What's the 2nd sentence supposed to mean? Originally someone blacked out the number before posting the scan and then they didn't but apparently didn't give the right reason (that they had a different number from whichever cert they used as the basis for their forgery). Then Polarik complains that his analysis was ignored. It wasn't, he just doesn't like the conclusion which is that scanned documents have artifacts.
In any case it's more distraction from the factcheck documents such as photo #5 which have no artifacts as can be seen plainly.
Brown Deer and Palmer appear to be the latest brand of freeper CoLB Troll who are attracted to the noise & attention that the other seagulls make, so they come over & make trouble and leave their own calling cards behind.
It’s still the same song they sing: this is a waste of time.
If This Thread is a Waste of Time, why did you log onto it?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2098432/posts
It’s obvious Brown Deer doesn’t even bother to read through threads. Here’s where I ran into him on the monster CoLB thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2040486/posts?page=6387#6387
You can get enough of Palmer just in this one current thread, though it looks like he’s been seagulling on other certifigate threads.
JimRob’s point above was perhaps that the conspiracies are indications of foul play, things that need more investigation. I don’t disagree, but a higher quality investigation would be useful. I think you’re right that the Rathergate incident has set a distinct tone and perhaps is even being used against us.
So you’re still stuck on this thing, you’re basically a one note Charlie.
And you don’t appear to be bright enough to address your questions to the guy who it’s aimed at: Polarik. But that doesn’t stop you from denigrating him, which is considered very impolite in Freeper land. There appears to be ample evidence rapidly mounting up that you are a CoLB troll. Best of luck getting your questions answered.
Also this story changes week by week. One day Obama is Kenyan. Then he has duel citizenship with America and Kenya. Then magically he was actually born in Indonesia, then suddenly he has duel American and Indonesian citizenship.
Then all of a sudden Obama is a British subject. Hell I even hear he was a citizen of Kenya, America and Indonesia.
The story has changed ONLY as more chapters of Obama's early life have been uncovered.
British citizenship: If Obama was born in 1961 in Kenya, as his paternal grandmother, half-brother and several cousins assert to be the case, he had British Citizenship through his father since Kenya was part of the United Kingdom at that time.
Kenyan Citizenship: Obama also has Kenyan citizenship, also derived from his bloodline through his father, regardless of where he was born under Kenyan law. (This paternal bloodline makes him ethnically Muslim by Sharia and Kenyan law.)
US Citizenship: Obama has US citizenship through his mother Stanley Ann Dunham. That makes him a triad citizen.
Kenya became independent in 1964 and Kenyans IN Kenya, under Kenyan legal jurisdiction, lost their United Kingdom citizenships. Obama was no longer under Kenyan jurisdiction (if he ever was—strangely, Kenya has just announced that they have sealed Barack Hussein Obama's records in Kenya. WHY are there any such Kenyan records to seal???) and was not subjected to that citizenship loss.
Indonesian Citizenship: No one has every claimed that Obama was born in Indonesia. He is, however, a naturalized citizen of Indonesia.
After his mother's divorce from Obama's father and remarriage to Indonesian citizen Lolo Soetero, Obama moved with his mother and step-father to Indonesia where he was adopted by Lolo. Indonesia, by law, does not allow dual, much less triad, citizenships, so by adoption he became solely an Indonesian citizen. Indonesian government and school records exist which show that Barry Soetero was an Indonesian citizen and a Muslim, although he attended a school run by Catholics. By Indonesian law, only Indonesian citizens could attend school in Indonesia at that time! Ergo, Barry Soetero (neé Obama) held Indonesian citizenship.
When Barry returned to Hawai'i, he could and should have applied for Naturalized citizenship to regain his US citizenship. There is no record of that occurring. The likelyhood is that, being ignorant of the law, he just did not bother to do that, relying on his previous US citizenship continuing despite the inconvenient intervention of becoming an Indonesian citizen. Obama also could have reclaimed his US citizenship when he turned 18 by revoking any subsequent citizenship his parents may have selected for him while he was a child. There is no evidence that he took the steps necessary to do that.
In 1981, Barry did some traveling and visited his mother in Indonesia. He also took a side trip to Pakistan, a country that, at that time was proscribed for people traveling on American passports. To make this trip he had to have a passport. What did he use? There is evidence he used his Indonesian passport. If Obama, traveled with an Indonesian passport after his 18th birthday, that is prima facia evidence that he did not revoke his Indonesian citizenship and remains solely an Indonesian, under law.
All of the above convoluted citizenship trail REQUIRES explanation. There is existing case law that any dual citizenship voids Natural Born status—and Obama's is twisted and twined like climbing Ivy.
Nothing will ever make the crazies happy. I mean look 42 years later and people still don’t think 1 man killed Kennedy.
Uh, that's 45 years, newbie. I think your grasp of the argument, as well as history is tenuous, at best.
By-the-way, welcome to FreeRepublic.
You appear to have made quite an impression, since you’re being called an Obama lover and you haven’t even logged onto this thread.
Under what nation's passport did Obama travel to Pakistan when he was 20 years old? If it was Indonesian, he accepted his Indonesian Citizenship after reaching his majority.
That is in fact what I did in my original post, look for something more like that.
Welcome to FR by the way. I’m sorry you had to pick my issue because I don’t appear to get a lot of support for pointing out these facts. The truth is though that lots of people here are skeptical in both directions, both about Obama and his shady past and about the thread titles that start with the word “proof”.
Here’s what I wrote:
To have us take you seriously, we’d need to see you go through Polarik’s analyses point by point. Unfortunately for you, I don’t think you will.
That is not asking you to post to me. If you want to go through Polarik’s analyses point by point, I think that’s just dandy. Address them to Polarik and we’ll all watch.
Polarik is the only freeper who’s going to make money off this episode in American politics, so you’ll be doing him a favor when you go through his analyses. So, by all means, go ahead and criticize his analyses until you’re green in the face and he’s collecting tons of green in his hands.
The CIA and espionage people are very good at forging things like birth certificates, btw, so time is not on our side with these cases.
***I’ve posted that thought on other threads. I think Obama paid a pretty penny and got a first class forgery for his birth certificate put into just the right place in Hawaii; and when the courts see it, they won’t be able to tell it’s forged. The more time passes, the more chances he has to install the forgery and/or improve it.
Uh- Keyes did run. Even attended debate(s)
Signed up today, CoLB troll alert.
He refuses to supply basic information:
Original birth certificate — Not released
Obama/Dunham marriage license — Not released
Soetoro/Dunham marriage license — Not released
Soetoro adoption records — Not released
Besuki School application — Released
Punahou School records — Not released
Selective Service Registration — Released and under suspicion
Occidental College records — Not released
Passport (Pakistan) — Not released
Columbia College records — Not released
Columbia thesis — Not released
Harvard College records — Not released
Harvard Law Review articles — None (maybe 1, unsigned?)
Baptism certificate — None
Medical records — Not released
Illinois State Senate records — None
Illinois State Senate schedule — Lost
Law practice client list — Not released
University of Chicago scholarly articles — None
http://www.theobamafile.com/BarackObama.htm
Just some musings:
What I think so far is this: The question needing an answer is whether U.S.
law views “natural born” to include a person who at birth has dual citizenship.
It’s the condition AT BIRTH that is critical: He definitely had dual citizenship at birth if he was born in Hawaii.
Obama was at birth a British subject and, if born in Hawaii, an American citizen.
Can such a person be said to be a natural-born citizen?
That appears to be the question; regardless of his place of birth, for the time being, let’s say he was born in Hawaii. He still appears to have a problem.
The answer would appear to be no, because the Constitution grandfathered living U.S. citizens (who had dual citizenship — U.S. and British) into Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 5.
Therefore, it would seem that establishing Obama is unqualified to be president can be accomplished without a long-form birth certificate.
This “standing” thing is outrageous, though. We ought to get a few million people to go to the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. and stand there for a few weeks.
I’ve never been so aggravated with anything government has done as I am about this. It makes me ashamed to be an American if this cannot be resolved justly. It is profoundly unjust for the people of this country to not know if a candidate is constitutionally qualified to be president. What is so difficult for the courts to see?
What I mean my bottom line to be is this:
Let’s stop saying he wasn’t born in Hawaii. Let’s say, “OK, he was born in Hawaii.”
But he cannot be natural-born and be both a U.S. citizen and a British citizen/subject or else the founders would not have grandfathered themselves into the definition of qualification to hold the office of president.
Why so fast to give up the Republic
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