Book review: a question of eligibility

Cover: A question of eligibiltiyMy first question as I started reading A Question of Eligibility: A Law Enforcement Investigation into Barack Obama’s Birth Certificate and His Eligibility to be President by Jerome Corsi and Mark Zullo was whether or not any member of law enforcement was involved in the investigation. The book describes the lead investigator, Mike Zullo, as "Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Chief Investigator, MSCO Cold Case Posse" which might lead someone to think that Mr. Zullo holds a law enforcement position with Maricopa County, but that would be wrong. The Cold Case Posse is a group of volunteers, not County employees. Published sources describe Mr. Zullo as a "retired detective from New Jersey" but nowhere in the book does it say whether he was a police detective or private detective or that he is a detective at all. One would expect a book about an investigation to talk about the people who participated in the investigation, their background and their credentials, but that’s completely missing in this book. All we have are the two names of this book’s authors. In an interview Sheriff Joe Arpaio states that virtually no money from the County was spent on the investigation, which means that none of his paid law enforcement staff worked on it.

My second question was whether there was any investigation. The State of Hawaii, at which Sheriff Arpaio points the finger of suspicion, told reporters that no one from the Cold Case Posse had even talked to them. Further several commenters have pointed out that most of the "investigation" in the book comes from previously-published works by WorldNetDaily’s reporter Jerome Corsi. Atlanta attorney Loren Collins has published a side-by-side comparison of Chapter 2 of this book and Jerome Corsi’s book written before the investigation, Where’s the Birth Certificate?: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President showing big chunks of text copied word for word [links not in Amazon review to Chapter 1, Chapter 2]. The separate graphic analysis released by the Sheriff’s Office was written by Mara Zebest, who was writing articles for WorldNetDaily claiming that the birth certificate was a fraud long before this investigation. Even the videos were narrated by a far-right talk show host named Mark Gillar who has given considerable time to members of the "Birther movement" on his show. And of course, the book was published one day before the results of the "investigation" were announced. I can’t help but wonder if the "6-month investigation" ever happened, or if the 6 months were spent in slick video production and adaptation of content from Corsi and WorldNetDaily for this book.

The actual premise of the book is right out of a conspiracy theory thriller. In order for this book’s conclusions to be true a lot of people have to be in on the conspiracy including two State of Hawaii administrations, one Republican and one Democratic (including two governors, two Department of Health Directors, and one Director of Vital Statistics), the White House, the US Selective Service System under President George W. Bush and NBC News Correspondent Savannah Guthrie who said she saw, felt and photographed the paper birth certificate that the book says doesn’t exist.

The first major section of the book deals with the President’s long-form birth certificate. The book doesn’t make the claim that was made during the Maricopa County press conference that "forensic document examiners" had vetted the analysis of the certificate. Nowhere do we find the names of any of these in the book. Indeed WorldNetDaily’s own reporter Aaron Klein stated on his WABC radio show that they commissioned three credentialed document examiners to look at the certificate and that NONE of them found evidence of fraud. WorldNetDaily has not published any of these reports. One of the examiners, Ivan Zatkovich, published his report himself showing no conclusion of forgery. In addition another noted graphics detective, Dr. Neal Krawetz, also examined the document and found no evidence of fraud. So why didn’t the Cold Case Posse talk to these 4 experts, and why didn’t they include the 3 reports that WorldNetDaily itself commissioned? A volunteer computer-savvy conservative spent three months examining the same issues raised here, resulting in a fine book that basically covers all of the birth certificate issues investigated. I reviewed Is Barack Obama’s Birth Certificate a Fraud?: A Computer Guy Examines The Evidence For Forgery when it came out, and it is far superior to this one. It concludes that there’s no evidence of forgery (just as the 4 professional examiners did).

This isn’t the appropriate place for a point-by-point examination of the graphics methodology, but I will point out one more major thing missing from the book and that is the words "Quartz PDFContext." That is the Apple computer software used by the White House in creating the birth certificate they released. It appears from the available videos that the Cold Case Posse never attempted to use the same software as the White House in their experiments — which of course makes them worthless. Listening to Zullo one might think that "optimization" and "OCR" were one thing done one way in all systems and software, which anyone who knows about graphics would consider nonsense. When they ran their experiment, they didn’t even start with a real birth certificate.

 

A second major premise of the book is that Barack Obama’s Selective Service System registration is faked. Remarkably, there’s not one word about where the supposedly forged registration card they examined came from. I do not know if they just found it on the Internet or got it from some official source. It was claimed on the Internet that someone named Stephen Coffman obtained the form through a Freedom of Information Act request in October of 2008. The document was certainly on the Internet by November. The significance of that date is that the response came from the George W. Bush administration, not Barack Obama. Why would Bush fake a document for Obama? This hugely significant fact seems like a major oversight in the book.  Maybe Corsi and Zullo didn’t even know where the image came from. Did they conclude fraud based on part of a date stamp not showing on a document they just found on the Internet? An actual law enforcement investigation would be concerned with the chain of custody of such a document, where it came from and who handled it.

The next section deals with Obama’s social-security number. One would think that real law enforcement could easily check a social-security number, but instead they just recounted a tale from a private investigator who looked at public information, long before the Cold Case Posse got involved. The statement that Barack Obama uses the social-security number issued to a person born in 1890 is patently absurd to anyone, like myself, who has ever had to straighten a SSN mismatch with the IRS.

The last section is a rather silly search in the national archives for records of international flights to Honolulu, supposedly performed by Jerome Corsi (not law enforcement). I say that it is silly because if Obama had been born in Kenya as conspiracy theorists like to say, a returning flight would have been through Los Angeles, and so the leg to Honolulu wouldn’t have been an international flight in the first place and no INS record would have been filled out. The three pages of this section may be the only thing "new" in the book.

So in conclusion, I cannot tell from the book whether any member of law enforcement participated or whether there was any investigation at all and whether anyone worked on the project who didn’t come into it fully-wedded to the conspiracy theories about President Obama. Sheriff Joe Arpaio got some publicity and perhaps some payback for the Obama administration’s accusations of endemic racial profiling in his office, and Mr. Zullo gets a split of the profits from the sale of a "sensational" book.

All I can add is unless you’re made of some pretty strong stuff, you will be dumber for having read this book.

This review is available on Amazon.com.

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
This entry was posted in Birth Certificate, Books, Jerome Corsi, Joe Arpaio and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

224 Responses to Book review: a question of eligibility

  1. JPotter says:

    Awesomely done, Doc!

    …. but will run afoul of the 3rd default amazon birther defense …. being too “wordy”. Hysterio-ironically, they will do anything to avoid engaging a well-written criticism on the merits (just as they accuse obots of doing!), yet they can’t avoid commenting on something they don’t even have the attention span for!

    Like flies to the candle flame.

  2. I should note that there is evidence that the book cover shown above is a fake and not an image of any real book. The publisher “Paperless Press” belies any clam that this is a real book. It’s just a file on the Internet.

  3. Wolf says:

    Thankyou for looking into this book Doc C! You sacrificed your sanity for us, I could not for the life of me even stand watching the conference in the first place, I barely got through it.

    Funny thing is, I’ve come across many birthers recently who claim it is an outright lie and misinformation to insist that Hawaiian authorities would be guilty as the result of this investigation. I keep on asking them how the Hawaiian health department could be innocent in all this, since they vouched for the BC, and since this posse found the BC undeniably fraudulent…. they don’t seem to want to answer this for me…. they just seem to want to deny that they are accusing anybody.

    The deception seems endless for bitherism.

  4. JPotter says:

    Wolf: The deception seems endless for bitherism.

    One lie begets another.

    Most parents cover that with their 2-year olds, as part of learning to speak. Cover it intentionally or not, pretty much have to! Magical thinking is such a tempting crutch. To think, you can manipulate reality by simply …. talking! Your wish is the universe’s command! (Until Daddy comes home)

    Without relentless hard work, wishes, dreams, desires, intentions, all amount to jack squat. I had a birther renter* learn that the hard way last week. Not for birthing, but for attempting to rent with “good” intentions. When informed that only reality will be accepted, he became suddenly … ungrateful. Some of you joke about “birther tears” … having sampled them in the flesh, I got to say …. they are tasty!

    * Before you ask why I would rent to a birther, please remember: 1) it’s not a question on the application, 2) discrimination is bad, mmkay? 3) I am stuck in Okieland ….. unless I want to rent to myself …. yeah.

  5. The Magic M says:

    Wolf: they just seem to want to deny that they are accusing anybody

    Haven’t seen that in many birfers so far; I wonder if it’s their new upcoming “modus operandi” or if that’s just a new minority issue, and if so, what’s the point? Birferism has always been about blaming Obama and Hawaii with specificity (all scenarios allowing Obama to claim “I was not involved, I had no idea” were immediately discarded, even if it meant making up even more contrived and unrealistic extensions to the conspiracy theory). Or have their “masterminds” decided it’s a more promising approach for entrapping the general public to not make any personal accusations and just let their (pseudo) “facts” speak for themselves?

  6. Since my review went up on Amazon, I have read all the other reviews. It’s funny. The 1-star reviews have lots of detailed criticisms about the book’s contents. The 5-star reviews just say that Corsi is a hero, Obama is destroying the country and that the 1-star reviewers haven’t read the book.

    I left this comment:

    Excuse me but do you have anything to say about the book you are reviewing? A book review ought to say something, you know, about the book. Remember Corsi and Zullo wrote a book with chapters and pictures and stuff. You could help everybody out and count the pages, since the Amazon description omits that.

  7. In the book Zullo points his finger straight at Hawaii:

    “Officers of the Hawaii Department of Health and various elected Hawaiian public officials may have intentionally obscured 1961 birth records and procedures, to avoid having torelease to public inspection and to the examination of court-authorized forensic examiners any original Obama 1961 birth records the Hawaii Department of Health may or may not have,” said Mike Zullo, the lead investigator in Sheriff Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse.

    Wolf: Funny thing is, I’ve come across many birthers recently who claim it is an outright lie and misinformation to insist that Hawaiian authorities would be guilty as the result of this investigation.

  8. misha says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I should note that there is evidence that the book cover shown above is a fake and not an image of any real book. The publisher “Paperless Press” belies any clam that this is a real book. It’s just a file on the Internet.

    Fiction Writer Admits Making Up Everything –
    http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i10103

  9. Majority Will says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Since my review went up on Amazon, I haveread all the other reviews. It’s funny. The 1-star reviews have lots of detailed criticisms about the book’s contents. The 5-star reviews just say that Corsi is a hero, Obama is destroying the country and that the 1-star reviewers haven’t read the book.

    I left this comment:

    Are WND interns required to read?

  10. RuhRoh says:

    The Magic M: Haven’t seen that in many birfers so far; I wonder if it’s their new upcoming “modus operandi” or if that’s just a new minority issue, and if so, what’s the point? Birferism has always been about blaming Obama and Hawaii with specificity (all scenarios allowing Obama to claim “I was not involved, I had no idea” were immediately discarded, even if it meant making up even more contrived and unrealistic extensions to the conspiracy theory). Or have their “masterminds” decided it’s a more promising approach for entrapping the general public to not make any personal accusations and just let their (pseudo) “facts” speak for themselves?

    I think it’s a way to pull in the “Birther Curious”. Latent racists, people disgruntled with Obama, etc.

    The people who have been seething with rage about Presidenting While Black are already customers.

  11. Loren says:

    Obama’s Selective Service card was apparently the product of an FOIA request by one Mr. J. Stephen Coffman, in October 2008. A copy of the Selective Service’s response letter is here:

    http://www.debbieschlussel.com/4428/exclusive-did-next-commander-in-chief-falsify-selective-service-registration-never-actually-register-obamas-draft-registration-raises-serious-questions/

  12. Majority Will says:

    Al Halbert: Obama continues to have issues with Republican’s trust.

    FIFY.

    Republicans won’t vote for Obama. Shocking.

    Kindergarten records? It’s good to see fright wing idiots concerned about important issues.

    “When has a president ever been asked to prove his citizenship?”

    – Andrew Breitbart

  13. Scientist says:

    Al Halbert: Al Halbert continues to have issues with the peoples trust.

    Last night on this very board, several of us got Al Halbert to admit that his “concerns” over eligibility are phony and simply a smokescreen for his dislike of the President. Unchastened by his ignominious exposure he comes back to try his false flag operation once again. Al Halbert obviously lacks the shame gene.

  14. Jim F says:

    Al halbert.
    This is another of those comments that when they are shown to be lies further weaken whatever case you might think you have. You omitted to tell us that the poll was taken from likely REPUBLICAN voters only. Did you not think that someone would go and check this out? Is this what they call being “economical with the truth”? You are not only a liar but a stupid liar.

  15. Scientist says:

    Loren: Obama’s Selective Service card was apparently the product of an FOIA request by one Mr. J. Stephen Coffman, in October 2008. A copy of the Selective Service’s response letter is here:

    I am a bit surprised that such information about a living individual is allowed to be released under FOIA. I know that tax returns, social security records, passport records and all kinds of other information about living individuals is not released, so why this? It seems a bit odd.

  16. bovril says:

    Al Halbert: Al Halbert March 6, 2012 at 7:38 am Al Halbert(Quote) # Highlights of article link below, Obama continues to have issues with the peoples trust.
    Majority in 3 key states doubt Obama eligibility
    More than 1/3 say Democrat not born in USA
    by Bob Unruh
    “The results were obtained by Public Policy Polling, which asked “Do you think Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?”

    Snip the rest of the birfoon blather….

    And yet Al, the President (God that must annoy the cack out of you) is shown as ahead against ALL of the remnants of the 7 Dwarves of the Republican party

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html

  17. Scientist says:

    ” virtually no money from the County was spent on the investigation” means that some public money WAS spent on an investigation of matters outside the purview of a county sheriff in Arizona in order to fuel book sales by private parties. I’m sorry, but there is no way in hell that is ethical or legal.

  18. sactosintolerant says:

    I hope for the sake of Maricopa county residents that Sheriff Joe demands better work from his paid investigators.

    Does anyone know the results of past Cold Case Posse investigations and those posse members?

  19. A commenter named “John” posted this comment on my blog to explain why Michael Zullo could not come on my radio show:

    “This is a OPEN criminal investigation of fraud and forgery. Not all information can be disclosed.”

    That got me thinking. When has a group involved in an “ongoing criminal investigation” sold an interim report for profit in the middle of the investigation?

  20. RuhRoh says:

    Reality Check: A commenter named “John” posted this comment on my blog to explain why Michael Zullo could not come on my radio show:“This is a OPEN criminal investigation of fraud and forgery. Not all information can be disclosed.”That got me thinking. When has a group involved in an “ongoing criminal investigation” sold an interim report for profit in the middle of the investigation?

    “John” has apparently failed to notice the many interviews that Zullo and Arpaio have willingly given to RWNJ radio and print outlets….

    As to the sale of an interim report during a valid investigation: never.

  21. Northland10 says:

    Doc or Loren,

    There is mention of a side by side comparison of chapter 2. Where is this available? I cannot seem to find it. Made even more difficult since I am on mobile.

  22. Arthur says:

    Al Halbert: Highlights of article link below, Obama continues to have issues with the peoples trust.

    Hi Al,

    Say, the next time you want to post something off-topic, could you please look up the latest “Open Thread” and post it there.

  23. RuhRoh says:

    Northland10: Doc or Loren, There is mention of a side by side comparison of chapter 2. Where is this available? I cannot seem to find it. Made even more difficult since I am on mobile.

    Here are links to the comparisons that Loren has compiled. Keep in mind these are ONLY documenting direct lifting of text from previously published Corsi articles. There is apparently even greater overlap than is documented here as many of the arguments are identical although the wording has been changed.

    Chapter 2: http://www.scribd.com/doc/84047804/A-Question-of-Eligibility-Comparison-Chapter-2

    Chapter 1: http://www.scribd.com/doc/83868764/A-Question-of-Eligibility-Comparison-Chapter-1

  24. I deleted Al’s two long comments. I will not allow this thread to be hijacked. It’s about the book and will stay so.

    Arthur: Say, the next time you want to post something off-topic, could you please look up the latest “Open Thread” and post it there.

  25. Northland10 says:

    Never mind. Found it on another thread. I am running behind on my comment reading.

    Northland10:
    Doc or Loren,

    There is mention of a side by side comparison of chapter 2.Where is this available?I cannot seem to find it.Made even more difficult since I am on mobile.

  26. Al Halbert says:

    Can We Trust Barack Obama’s Justice Department?
    Katie Pavlich
    News Editor, Townhall

    “Nope.”

    http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2011/12/05/can_we_trust_barack_obamas_justice_department

    Lincoln quote;
    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

  27. Hey thanks. I have added these to the article. I can’t put external hyperlinks on Amazon, which is why something I would normally do wasn’t done.

    RuhRoh: Here are links to the comparisons that Loren has compiled.

  28. Al Halbert says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    I deleted Al’s two long comments. I will not allow this thread to be hijacked. It’s about the book and will stay so.

    The question at ISSUE doc is TRUST and Truth, which you will not allow!

  29. Loren says:

    RuhRoh: “John” has apparently failed to notice the many interviews that Zullo and Arpaio have willingly given to RWNJ radio and print outlets….

    Arpaio and Zullo were on Peter Boyles’ show yesterday morning:

    http://www.khow.com/cc-common/podcast/single_page.html?more_page=1&podcast=fullshow_boyles&selected_podcast=03052012peter8am_1330963113_28101.mp3

  30. Al Halbert says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Hey thanks. I have added these to the article. I can’t put external hyperlinks on Amazon, which is why something I would normally do wasn’t done.

    Smear the investigation, not allow dissenting opinion on the veracity of Obama!

  31. Al Halbert says:

    Dr. Conspiracy;

    I think I have made my point on the openness of this site to the truth, your efforts to stifle and silence me is all the proof of you bias anyone would ever need.

    Lincoln quote;
    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

  32. Thomas Brown says:

    The new article I’m working on:

    “Lying Liars, the Lies They Tell, and the Nature of the Crap They Spew, as Seen in the Outright Shameless Lies of Someone Using the Name Al Halbert Who Would Really Just Like to Burn a Cross on the White House Lawn.”

  33. RuhRoh says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Hey thanks. I have added these to the article. I can’t put external hyperlinks on Amazon, which is why something I would normally do wasn’t done.

    You’re welcome!

  34. Keith says:

    Reality Check: That got me thinking. When has a group involved in an “ongoing criminal investigation” sold an interim report for profit in the middle of the investigation?

    I think “crime bosses” get access to them all the time.

  35. What investigation?]

    They examined “hundreds of documents” they talked to “dozens” of witnesses.so they said. Is there any compilation of testimony?

    What I wrote was a book review, you know about the book. I wasn’t reviewing Barack Obama. The birthers at Amazon do not understand the comments and in general say nothing about the book. They talk about Obama and they talk about Obots. They talk about anything but the book they supposedly are reviewing. They are abusing Amazon’s book reviews about as bad as you do dumping long off-topic comments that are irrelevant to the discussion. I reported a couple of those reviews to Amazon as in appropriate, since all they did was to insult other reviewers and not even mention the book.

    Our buddy John was over there, and I think he made the only substantive comment of all the birthers, and all it was was a fawning ramble about “official” and “official law enforcement” and stuff. There’s no sign that he read the book, any more than the other birthers who were yelling that the Obots hadn’t read the book. I don’t know whether the birthers read the book or not, but I can say with confidence that they weren’t talking

    Al Halbert: Smear the investigation, not allow dissenting opinion on the veracity of Obama!

  36. Arthur says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I deleted Al’s two long comments. I will not allow this thread to be hijacked. It’s about the book and will stay so.

    Thank you!

  37. Xyxox says:

    Al Halbert:
    Highlights of article link below, Obama continues to have issues with the peoples trust.

    WND did some interesting editing there. Those polls are strictly about GOP primary voters and have absolutely nothing to do with the general electorate. IT says more about racism underlying the GOP base than anything else.

    I love how birthers have no problems telling outright lies.

  38. Arthur says:

    Al Halbert: I think I have made my point on the openness of this site to the truth, your efforts to stifle and silence me is all the proof of you bias anyone would ever need.

    Al, get over yourself. If you don’t like people to challenge your claims, then go make them on a birther blog.

  39. Michael Heuss says:

    I wonder if we are asking too much critical thinking from our birthed friends when it comes to their writings. If they had those skills to begin with, they’d wouldn’t be birthers.

    In their world – answering a unsubstantiated question with one of equal dubiousness is quiet sufficient to win hearts and minds. They aren’t interested in reaching resolution. Rather, they are more interested in the feeling of self righteousness they get when another wild claim confirms their belief that Obama is evil after all.

  40. Thanks. I misremembered the blanked address as being a blanked out name. I’ve updated the review on Amazon and here.

    Loren: Obama’s Selective Service card was apparently the product of an FOIA request by one Mr. J. Stephen Coffman, in October 2008

  41. Michael Heuss says:

    Al Halbert: think I have made my point on the openness of this site to the truth, your efforts to stifle and silence me is all the proof of you bias anyone would ever need.

    Al – you’d be welcomed with open arms if you contributed to the discussion. Basic stuff – like what LOGICAL reasoning do you have that obama isn’t born in this country. What VERIFIABLE EVIDENCE do you have that the Hawaiian DOH is covering for him by claiming to have a birth certificate on file that doesn’t exist.

    What PROOF do you have to overturn the writings of the founders and constitutional scholars that says NBC is based on place of birth, and not citizenship of two parents?

    Posting misleading popularity polls, inuendo and suspicion won’t work here – if that type of stuff worked with us, we’d all be posting over on free republic about the government stealing dog food from patriots’ pit bulls.

  42. JPotter says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I can’t put external hyperlinks on Amazon, which is why something I would normally do wasn’t done.

    Doc, they don’t allow external links in reviews, but you can go back and comment on your own review, adding add’l material that way ….. like a “links appendix”! 😉

  43. DrC:

    That was a very good book review!!! I can hardly wait to NOT buy the book!!!

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  44. Scientist says:

    Al Halbert: The question at ISSUE doc is TRUST and Truth, which you will not allow!

    Al you wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you over the head. You admitted lying last night. Why don’t you address that?

  45. Al, let me cut to the chase here, if you don’t like what you’re reading here, go write your own blog and quit crapping all over this one. You’re like a broken vinyl record these days, constantly repeating mantras and dumbass one-liners.

  46. truxton spangler says:

    Al Halbert: Lincoln quote;
    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

    You can, however, fool all of the birthers all of the time.

  47. Just ignore John. Listening to him will make you stupid.

    RuhRoh: “John” has apparently failed to notice the many interviews that Zullo and Arpaio have willingly given to RWNJ radio and print outlets….

  48. You can talk about Trust all you want on the Open Thread. This topic is about Corsi’s book and/or my review of it.

    If you can’t follow the rules, you won’t be allowed to talk at all.

    http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2012/02/the-occasional-open-thread-leap-day-edition/

    Al Halbert: The question at ISSUE doc is TRUST and Truth, which you will not allow!

  49. veritas says:

    Is it true that Obama had an attorney travel to Hawaii to get his birth certificate?

  50. Al Halbert says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    What investigation?]

    They examined “hundreds of documents” they talked to “dozens” of witnesses.so they said. Is there any compilation of testimony?

    What I wrote was a book review, you know about the book. I wasn’t reviewing Barack Obama. The birthers at Amazon do not understand the comments and in general say nothing about the book. They talk about Obama and they talk about Obots. They talk about anything but the book they supposedly are reviewing. They are abusing Amazon’s book reviews about as bad as you do dumping long off-topic comments that are irrelevant to the discussion. I reported a couple of those reviews to Amazon as in appropriate, since all they did was to insult other reviewers and not even mention the book.

    Our buddy John was over there, and I think he made the only substantive comment of all the birthers, and all it was was a fawning ramble about “official” and “official law enforcement” and stuff. There’s no sign that he read the book, any more than the other birthers who were yelling that the Obots hadn’t read the book. I don’t know whether the birthers read the book or not, but I can say with confidence that they weren’t talking

    Al Halbert: Smear the investigation, not allow dissenting opinion on the veracity of Obama!

    Then you missed the FOREST for the Trees, what did the investigation (e-book) center on, in the end it is, can we trust Obama….? As one who has sat on a Federal Grand Jury for 18 months all that is needed is a synopsis of the evidence for probable cause.

    You should know this. Which is not a diatribe on any and all possibilities, that is the defense attorney’s job after indictment only after a presentment of the facts to a Grand Jury, Magistrate or Judge depending on jurisdiction in the matter be it a Federal or State Court. Might I add, you are are ably providing a defense before the fact, even before all the FACTS are known.

    As a matter of experience I have found when one does not have a defense they tend to narrow the argument in an attempt to give them some measure of credibility for the premise that is at issue.

    Lincoln quote;

    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

    To this I would add as my own homily;

    Pity the poor fool that cannot tell the difference between a turd and a truffle.

    FYI;
    I am not aware of “our buddy John”? Much less how it impinges on any comments I could make, nor how his comments could be attributable to me, there is simply no causal relationship! This comment seem to be stretching for something to discredit me without any basis in FACT, other than a common search for truth in the matter of Obama’s veracity and credibility! How am I responsible for “our buddy John”? I must assume you are making a straw man argument, which lacks logic or a sound basis is reason to my premise.

  51. Yes it is. The attorney’s name was Judith Corley.

    Documentation here:

    http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/News_Release_Birth_Certificate_042711.pdf

    veritas: Is it true that Obama had an attorney travel to Hawaii to get his birth certificate?

  52. richCares says:

    “That was a very good book review!!! I can hardly wait to NOT buy the book!!!”
    I’m beginning to admire Squeeky!

  53. The Magic M says:

    Scientist: I’m sorry, but there is no way in hell that is ethical or legal.

    As usual with birthers, they seem to believe being unethical and lying and deceiving is OK (or even required) as long as it’s for the “greater good” of getting rid of Obama…

  54. Scientist says:

    Al Halbert: Then you missed the FOREST for the Trees, what did the investigation (e-book) center on, in the end it is, can we trust Obama….?

    Law enforcement investigations are not supposed to be convened to look at whether someone is trustworthy or a nice guy or kind to homeless animals. They are limited to whether a specific violation of law wiithin their jurisdiction occurred. If this was an actual law enforcement investigation under Arizona law, then I would like to know what Arizona laws were broken or are alleged too have been broken. If the answer is “None” or “We don’t know” then this is NOT an actual law enforcement investigation, but merely a book tour.

    Al Halbert: As one who has sat on a Federal Grand Jury for 18 months

    Given your propensity to lie, as well documented here, I am going to demand that you prove that you served on a grand jury. Which case? Trust but verify.

  55. If Sheriff Joe wants to go before a grand jury, fine. He chose to make their case before the court of public opinion. I am part of the public and I refuse to return an indictment based on that flimsy pile of crap.

    You can make excuses for it, but all you’re saying is “I know that the presentation is inadequate, has huge gaping holes in it and can’t be independently verified, but you should trust it anyway.” Well I don’t trust it, particularly since what I can verify is wrong.

    Al Halbert: Then you missed the FOREST for the Trees, what did the investigation (e-book) center on, in the end it is, can we trust Obama….? As one who has sat on a Federal Grand Jury for 18 months all that is needed is a synopsis of the evidence for probable cause.

  56. Loren says:

    Al Halbert:
    Lincoln quote;

    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

    If you want to defend Birther ‘research’ as legitimate and compelling, you should probably stop citing a disputed and likely apocryphal Lincoln quote as part of your argument.

    See: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#Disputed

    It’s a nice shorthand for ‘Hey! This quotation I didn’t bother to verify says that you should trust the other things I say!’

  57. CarlOrcas says:

    Al Halbert: The question at ISSUE doc is TRUST and Truth, which you will not allow!

    The issue is not Doc’s truthfulness but your inability to deal with it.

  58. If you would like to not read the book I could not lend you my copy and then you wouldn’t have to not spend $9.99 for nothing.

    Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter: That was a very good book review!!! I can hardly wait to NOT buy the book!!!

  59. CarlOrcas says:

    Scientist: I’m sorry, but there is no way in hell that is ethical or legal.

    You’re exactly right. As far as county resources being used I recall a comment from Arpaio or Zullo about how posse members were briefed by deputies on what to look for, etc.

    And, of course, they used county facilities for the press conference and, I suspect, calls regarding the investigation are going to the sheriff’s paid PR staff.

    Other than that……………………

  60. Look here under comments made by “John” (who is not named John by the way) or by JYoungblood at Amazon.com.

    Al Halbert: I am not aware of “our buddy John”?

  61. I was going to speculate that the Maricopa County Supervisor’s office should investigate the Sheriff, but I see that the bad blood there is already running in the streets. Sheriff Joe is Maricopa County’s problem, not mine.

    CarlOrcas: And, of course, they used county facilities for the press conference and, I suspect, calls regarding the investigation are going to the sheriff’s paid PR staff.

  62. gorefan says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Yes it is. The attorney’s name was Judith Corley.

    There is this great quote from the Hawaii DOH

    “In June 2008, President Obama released his Certification of Live Birth, which is
    sometimes referred to in the media as a “short form” birth certificate. Both documents
    are legally sufficient evidence of birth in the State of Hawai’i, and both provide the
    same fundamental information: President Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawai’i at 7:24
    p.m. on August 4, 1961, to mother Stanley Ann Dunham and father Barack Hussein
    Obama.

    Cannot get more definitive than that.

    I guess that qualifies as verification.

  63. elmo says:

    Zullo’s got credentials, all right. He’s the guy to go to for your cat’s horoscope.

    http://www.amazon.com/Cat-Astrology-Complete-Feline-Horoscopes/dp/0740718681/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1/184-4846123-4399769

  64. CarlOrcas says:

    Al Halbert: Then you missed the FOREST for the Trees, what did the investigation (e-book) center on, in the end it is, can we trust Obama….?

    The forest, in this case, is simply politics. Whether we can or should trust Obama is a question to be answered in the voting booth.

    This charade is simply a lame, ham handed effort to circumvent that process.

  65. richCares says:

    why is it that the posse never asked the White House to inspect the paper copies they got from Hawaii, the one reporters saw and Guntrie snapped a picture of. Wouldn’t an un-biased investation do that, Oh it was biased, and there was no investigation. OK!

  66. CarlOrcas says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I was going to speculate that the Maricopa County Supervisor’s office should investigate the Sheriff, but I see that the bad blood there is already running in the streets. Sheriff Joe is Maricopa County’s problem, not mine

    At this point Arpaio is toxic for other Arizona politicians. I suspect the supervisors won’t do anything…..unless Arpaio wants to buy more rope to hang himself with.

  67. WND uses a push polling outfit from Ohio who will basically give you the results you want. I am not sure if they did on this one. That’s who does most of their polls.

    Xyxox: WND did some interesting editing there. Those polls are strictly about GOP primary voters and have absolutely nothing to do with the general electorate. IT says more about racism underlying the GOP base than anything else.

    I love how birthers have no problems telling outright lies.

  68. JoZeppy says:

    Al Halbert: As one who has sat on a Federal Grand Jury for 18 months all that is needed is a synopsis of the evidence for probable cause.

    Gee…that’s almost as good a qualification as staying at a Holiday Inn Express last night…

  69. Thomas Brown says:

    Al Halbert: As one who has sat on a Federal Grand Jury for 18 months all that is needed is a synopsis of the evidence for probable cause.

    JoZeppy: Gee…that’s almost as good a qualification as staying at a Holiday Inn Express last night…

    We’re waiting, ‘Al.’ WHAT CASE AND WHEN. Tell us, or don’t say another word, because you are now a proven liar.

  70. richCares says:

    Al say “As one who has sat on a Federal Grand Jury for 18 months ”
    .
    this is appeal to authority, a common trait of creationists and right wing nut jobs. almost always phony. Al is either one or both.

  71. mimi says:

    I suggest Mr. Halbert read the Columbia Journalism Review article on Joe Farah from 1996. Via The Wayback Machine: “The Vince Foster Factory”:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20080211120209/http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/96/2/foster.asp

    Mr. Halbert sounds like the audience Joe Farah is aiming for. Gullible.

  72. Thrifty says:

    How long is the book again? I think I checked it out over on Amazon, but it’s only available in Kindle format. I think I remember reading somewhere that it’s really short, like fewer than 100 pages.

    I ordered a copy of John Woodman’s book. It should be at my home within a day or two. I look forward to reading it

  73. Thrifty says:

    Good review, and I’d also like to not read the book, but I’m afraid I don’t have time. I’m far too busy not taking international flights and generating records of those flights.

  74. Well that’s not an easy question. It’s an e-book and the number of pages really depends on how big you open the book reader screen (I run Kindle software on my PC). Some have said that it’s 55 pages including the table of contents and I can’t argue with that. I think that if the book were conventionally typeset in a real paper book, it would be a lot less than 55 pages. One also has to take into account that there are lot of large pictures.

    Thrifty: How long is the book again?

  75. Loren says:

    Thrifty:
    How long is the book again?I think I checked it out over on Amazon, but it’s only available in Kindle format.I think I remember reading somewhere that it’s really short, like fewer than 100 pages.

    A lot shorter. If you don’t count the cover and title pages (and I don’t), it’s just 53 pages. Roughly half of which has appeared, nearly word-for-word, in earlier sources (last week’s press release and WND article, Corsi’s book and articles). Most of the rest was already presented in the press conference; it’s not like the e-book fleshes those details out further.

    Like Doc says, virtually the only thing ‘new’ in the book is the three pages about Corsi looking at INS flight records. That’s right: the only ‘new’ material in the book was something *Corsi* did, not something any of the actual Posse members did.

  76. James M says:

    “Virtually no money” is not the same as “no money”, and I have asked my representative in the State Legislature (Steve Farley) to investigate this.

  77. richCares says:

    this book is heavily advertised on NaziMingle.com, and it is their book of the month selection

    see http://www.borowitzreport.com/

  78. James M says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I was going to speculate that the Maricopa County Supervisor’s office should investigate the Sheriff

    I have asked my representative in the State Legislature, Steve Farley, to do exactly this. There are some serious questions, such as whether Sheriff Arpaio deputized persons who aren’t eligible deputies, and whether the Sheriff’s office spent any public money on this investigation. Steve is the sort of politician who writes longhand thank you notes to constituents, so I actually expect to get a personal response to my request.

  79. Scientist says:

    James M: “Virtually no money” is not the same as “no money”, and I have asked my representative in the State Legislature (Steve Farley) to investigate this.

    Excellent! Please let us know what you hear.

  80. Al Halbert says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    If Sheriff Joe wants to go before a grand jury, fine. He chose to make their case before the court of public opinion. I am part of the public and I refuse to return an indictment based on that flimsy pile of crap.

    You can make excuses for it, but all you’re saying is “I know that the presentation is inadequate, has huge gaping holes in it and can’t be independently verified, but you should trust it anyway.” Well I don’t trust it, particularly since what I can verify is wrong.

    If an indictment actually does come it most assuredly will not be by your HANDS! This investigation is being elevated in the Sheriffs Office as a full blown investigation, with a person of interest already identified. Which may very well end up in an indictment, granted it would only be valid in Arizona, leaving Obama or the perpetrator in the precarious position of facing prosecution in Arizona.

    However one thing is certain that Obama would directly benefit from any fraud or forgery on his behalf regarding these questionable documents, do you want a President living over this cloud to his office as it impedes his abilty to lead this Nation? Our Allies are closely monitoring this situation and it will definitely affect how we as a Nation and Obama can interact with these other Sovereign Nations.

    This is the common definition of probable cause;

    The best-known definition of probable cause is “a reasonable belief that a person has committed a crime”.[2] Another common definition is “a reasonable amount of suspicion, supported by circumstances sufficiently strong to justify a prudent and cautious person’s belief that certain facts are probably true”.[3] Notable in this definition is a lack of requirement for public position or public authority of the individual making the recognition, allowing for use of the term by citizens and/or the general public.

    Clearly there is probable cause, after all it is a “reasonable belief” or “suspicion”, so the matter rests on the evidence, which appears incontrovertible. Which you have not attacked directly on method or substance only hyperbole without any basis in fact. Your “flimsy pile of crap” comment has absolutely no evidentiary value.

    Where was their method wrong, how is it that there comes to be a 2 digit date stamp on Obama’s Selective Service card versus the 4 digits known to be in use by the USPO in 1961 and [USPS], now. This Selective Service card was obtained by a FOIA request; are you indicting the entire U.S. Government over this release of Obama’s document? Shoot the messenger all you want, you have to attack the evidence or all you protestations are for naught.

    Anecdotal though significant is approximately 60% of the Nation has doubts about Obama’s nativity, when all respondents to a survey (cited earlier which you deleted) are tabulated regarding this question. When it is asked of the Nations citizens which include those that are certain and those that are uncertain, reasonable doubts lingers in the minds of a majority of American regarding this issue.

    So probable cause is reasonable given the evidence. Obama could end this tomorrow if he wanted to and put all Americans minds at ease so we can move on. It is a given he has released his True and Certified LFBC into the public domain, a fait accompli, so the question remains is how could this hurt him if he allowed Hawaii DOH to release to verification their archives? Simply put, it can’t! When someone acts to hide something, as a people we instinctively know this and ask WHY, we are not wrong for doing so.

    Lincoln quote;
    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

  81. Scientist says:

    Doc: It’s about time that this fool was stopped. He doesn’t respond to questions directed at him and he twists the facts. Am I talking about Halbert or Arpaio? Actually both, but only one of them posts here and thus falls under your control Please do something..

  82. nbc says:

    Al Halbert: If an indictment actually does come it most assuredly will not be by your HANDS! This investigation is being elevated in the Sheriffs Office as a full blown investigation, with a person of interest already identified. Which may very well end up in an indictment, granted it would only be valid in Arizona, leaving Obama or the perpetrator in the precarious position of facing prosecution in Arizona.

    You really believe this? Hilarious. Arpaio and his posse really have misled you here. There will be no ‘full blown investigation’, there will be no indictments, there are no persons of interest. You are being played.

    WND Farah is upset that the media is not picking this up, Arpaio was hoping Congress would pick this up, and now they are all disappointed that their ruse did not work.

    Why does Arpaio not file a criminal complaint with the DA? Because he knows that he has nothing…

  83. justlw says:

    Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter: I can hardly wait to NOT buy the book!!!

    I’ve not bought it ten times already this morning!

    Excellent job, Doc.

    I especially liked “J. Youngblood’s” comment that the State of Hawaii may have committed a crime by disclosing that no one from the Posse Cats has ever tried to contact them. “Sssh, you’re going to blow the case!”

  84. nbc says:

    Al Halbert: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

    And you can fool Al all the time as he is gullible, does not check his sources and allows himself to be manipulated by mere statements by others.

    Point in case, the Posse ‘investigation’ which will amount to nothing. As we have already shown, their ‘evidence’ of fraud amounts to nothing and Arpaio knows it. And I believe even Al knows this, hence his anger and frustration. First he has been relying on Orly who is totally unable to win any of her case or prove her case with probative evidence and arguments. So now there is the Posse, repeating the same discredited arguments who have worked unofficially to make the birther case but again, Arpaio is not that foolish that he will file any real charges he is just hoping the press and Congress will run with it.

  85. justlw says:

    veritas: veritas March 6, 2012 at 10:40 am (Quote) #

    Is it true that Obama had an attorney travel to Hawaii to get his birth certificate?

    Socrates is back! I can hardly wait to see where this line of questioning is going.

  86. justlw says:

    Thinking about it — Attorney Corley’s trip now has to be considered money spent by Obama’s lawyers to unseal his records. I hope WND is including this as a subtraction from their “millions spent” tally.

  87. nbc says:

    veritas: Is it true that Obama had an attorney travel to Hawaii to get his birth certificate?

    The relevant legal term for you is “chain of custody”.

  88. Sef says:

    Someone needed (needs) to ask Sheriff Joe if he and his department were signing off on this “investigation” as an official product of MCSO and if they agreed to be bound by the perjury laws.

  89. justlw says:

    Al Halbert: Clearly there is probable cause, after all it is a “reasonable belief”

    No, there is no reasonable belief.

    The case hinges on analyzing the wrong document (and completely screwing it up), the belief that the Bush43 Administration willfully engaged in forgery to protect a Democrat’s candidacy, and a known muckraker’s unsubstantiated muck.

    “Reasonable” is completely missing from this.

  90. Bob says:

    Al Halbert,

    The “investigation” was an infommercial for a very silly book. You seem to be taking it seriously.

  91. sactosintolerant says:

    Reality Check:
    WND uses a push polling outfit from Ohio who will basically give you the results you want. I am not sure if they did on this one. That’s who does most of their polls.

    Don’t know if they still do, but in the past WND was linking to poll detail in their poll articles. The question wording and the order they were asked in showed the contortions gone through to get the answer to the money question they were looking for. WND is a sham operation and I fear for its loyal readers… and those of us who live among them.

  92. Loren says:

    Here’s another way the investigation and e-book regurgitated old Birther material. Both, in talking about Obama’s Selective Service card, highlighted some other SS cards for comparison purposes.

    All four examples of SS cards were already in the possession of Susan Daniels and ORYR as early as last June:

    http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2011/06/obamas-forged-selective-service.html

    So did the Posse didn’t even request *that* information. It was just handed to them by Daniels. Note how the June 2011 ORYR post even makes the same argument about the year in the stamp.

  93. bovril says:

    Sef: Someone needed (needs) to ask Sheriff Joe if he and his department were signing off on this “investigation” as an official product of MCSO and if they agreed to be bound by the perjury laws.

    [ Pimping my contribution at the Fogbow….. 😎 ]

    Final point

    http://www.thefogbow.com/arpaio-report/document-forensics/

    Once the analysis was run and the results collated, was the report reviewed by the CCP? If the report was acceptable, did Sheriff Arpaio officially sign off as to satisfaction of the records and results?

  94. nbc says:

    Scientist: I am a bit surprised that such information about a living individual is allowed to be released under FOIA. I know that tax returns, social security records, passport records and all kinds of other information about living individuals is not released, so why this? It seems a bit odd.

    Same here. In addition to Obama’s SSS form, they got another half dozen contemporaneous forms. Obama’s form appears to be in B&W while the others appear to be in greyscale. I would love to see actual photographs of Obama’s SSS form and focus on the USPO date stamp area…

    Selective Services FOIA

  95. Majority Will says:

    Al Halbert: March 6, 2012

    What does this erroneous, fright wing opinion piece have to do with Corsi and Zullo’s collection of crap on eligibility on Amazon.com?

  96. bovril says:

    “American Thinker”, that’s your lodestone……sad, truly, trully sad, why not the National Enquirer at least it doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not

  97. bovril says:

    Ooops, looks like Doc pulled Al’s post

  98. David says:

    It’s a shame the great information on this website isn’t broadcast to a larger audience. The people of Maricopa County would be disgusted with the fact that their county sheriffs department is being used as a subsidiary of WND.

  99. Al Halbert says:

    Another Source for Attorney Generals Report;

    MEMO: A Report on Obama Administration Violations of Law
    FROM: Attorneys General Tom Horne, Arizona; Pam Bondi, Florida; Sam Olens, Georgia; Bill Schuette, Michigan; Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma; Marty Jackley, South Dakota; Alan Wilson, South Carolina; Greg Abbott, Texas; Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia
    DATE: March 5, 2012

    http://rslc.com/_blog/News/post/MEMO_A_Report_on_Obama_Administration_Violations_of_Law/

    Lincoln quote;
    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

  100. nbc says:

    Oh and Al, did you look at the actual report. Hilarious… Care to pick one of the ‘violations’ and defend it as such…

    EPA, Immigration, Health Care… These are those who deny that the Federal Government has the right to dictate the States how to deal with issues that are US wide… Fascinating… But without much real merit.

    Another FAIL by our friend Al…

    For example

    DOJ: Arizona Immigration; In violation of 10th Amendment, federal government to sue to prevent AZ from using reasonable measures to discourage illegal immigration within Arizona’s borders; Affects Arizona because state has a large percentage, compared to other states, of illegal immigrants and need to be able to act to reduce the number

    Immigration is essentially a federal issue.

    Law professors agree it to be unconstitutional

    Judges doubt the constitutionality of key provisions

    Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal rules law unconstitutional

    Andrea Nill reports that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed with the district court that Arizona’s infamous anti-immigration bill is illegal. The key issue is “preemption”: Because of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, conflicts between federal and state law are resolved in favor of the former, and the 9th Circuit ruled that the Arizona law impermissibly conflicts with federal powers to regulate immigration.

    Sorry Al… You have been had once again… Trust and Verify my friend, trust but verify.

  101. CarlOrcas says:

    bovril: Ooops, looks like Doc pulled Al’s post

    Good for him!

    But there’s another that just popped up……kinda like a bad taco.

  102. nbc says:

    David: It’s a shame the great information on this website isn’t broadcast to a larger audience. The people of Maricopa County would be disgusted with the fact that their county sheriffs department is being used as a subsidiary of WND.

    Don’t worry, the message is getting out… It’s all about timing…

  103. CarlOrcas says:

    David: It’s a shame the great information on this website isn’t broadcast to a larger audience. The people of Maricopa County would be disgusted with the fact that their county sheriffs department is being used as a subsidiary of WND.

    They know all about Sheriff Arpaio.

    At this point in his tenure they’re not surprised by anything he does.

  104. nbc says:

    Al, unable to defend his own follies, has increased the onslaught with more mindless spamming attempts, unwilling to defend them, unable to understand them. He has become a total tool for those who are hoping to spread their misinformation.

    What a legacy to leave behind… What would your grandchildren have to say about this Al?

    Why is it so hard to admit that you were misled by others that resulted in you looking foolish? Why is it so hard to take personal responsibility for your actions?

  105. Birthers have been predicting things like this for 3 and half years, and none of it has ever come true. I’m not gonna leave the light on.

    The only full-blown investigation I know about is about racial profiling in the Sheriff’s office.

    Al Halbert: This investigation is being elevated in the Sheriffs Office as a full blown investigation, with a person of interest already identified.

  106. Thrifty says:

    From the way you and Doc describe it, the thing sounds more like a pamphlet than a book.

    Loren: A lot shorter.If you don’t count the cover and title pages (and I don’t), it’s just 53 pages.Roughly half of which has appeared, nearly word-for-word, in earlier sources (last week’s press release and WND article, Corsi’s book and articles).Most of the rest was already presented in the press conference; it’s not like the e-book fleshes those details out further.

    Like Doc says, virtually the only thing new’ in the book is the three pages about Corsi looking at INS flight records.That’s right:the only new’ material in the book was something *Corsi* did, not something any of the actual Posse members did.

  107. JPotter says:

    nbc: WND Farah is upset that the media is not picking this up, Arpaio was hoping Congress would pick this up, and now they are all disappointed that their ruse did not work.

    This continues to amaze. Why would the media pick it up??? They’ve already squezzed out all the juice last year!

    Insert Parrot Sketch ….. again!

    I did love how Arpaio stated he would have to decide whether or not to have Congressional Hearings. Man, what a heavy burden for a lowly county shur-ruff 😉

  108. JPotter says:

    JPotter: They’ve already squezzed out all the juice last year!

    ….and there wasn’t enough to fill a newborn sippy cup.

  109. Rickey says:

    I am still waiting for a birther to explain to me what statute Obama is alleged to have violated. Even if we grant their fantasy that the LFBC is a forgery, how does that constitute fraud?

    To my knowledge, the LFBC which was shown to the press last year has never been presented to any governmental agency for any official purpose. Obama did not use it to get on the ballot; he did not use it to obtain a passport; he did not use it to obtain a library card. And what does the LFBC have to do with any laws of the State of Arizona?

    And as others have noted, if the Selective Service registration is a forgery it was perpetrated by someone in the Bush Administration.

    If Obama has been using a fraudulent SSN, why haven’t the posse “investigators” been able to connect it with another name?

  110. Al Halbert says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Birthers have been predicting things like this for 3 and half years, and none of it has ever come true. I’m not gonna leave the light on.

    The only full-blown investigation I know about is about racial profiling in the Sheriff’s office.

    So Obama and Holder make an accusation without indictment and it is true without any evidence being given, only supposition or innuendo. Though you can pass judgement when prima facie evidence is presented by Maricopa County and is FACT that you, Holder or Obama cannot dispute because you cannot refute it.

    You know as well as I do what we call people that have these dual standards. I see your U.S Attorney General and raise you Nine State Attorney Generals now disagree with you, Obama and Holder over the lawless behavior of Obama and his Administration.

    Lincoln quote;
    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

  111. G says:

    What utter nonsense!

    It shows the pathetic limitations of your own mind and how all you are capable of is merely PROJECTING your own petty inadequacies onto others.

    ANSWER: If Obama & Holder (or anyone for that matter) makes an accusation without indictment, it is nothing more than an accusation without indictment . *DUH*

    It neither makes it true nor untrue from that mere criteria alone.

    Sadly, you are one who lives by “magical thinking” that is nothing more than the whim of your irrational emotional outbursts.

    The rest of us live in reality. If there isn’t the empirical evidence to back up an accusation, it remains nothing but an accusation. It doesn’t matter who made the accusation in the first place – if it lacks a foundation, then the case won’t be provable. Simple as that.

    Al Halbert: So Obama and Holder make an accusation without indictment and it is true without any evidence being given, only supposition or innuendo. Though you can pass judgement when prima facie evidence is presented by Maricopa County and is FACT that you, Holder or Obama cannot dispute because you cannot refute it. You know as well as I do what we call people that have these dual standards. I see your U.S Attorney General and raise you Nine State Attorney Generals now disagree with you, Obama and Holder over the lawless behavior of Obama and his Administration.Lincoln quote;You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

  112. nbc says:

    Al Halbert: So Obama and Holder make an accusation without indictment and it is true without any evidence being given, only supposition or innuendo. Though you can pass judgement when prima facie evidence is presented by Maricopa County and is FACT that you, Holder or Obama cannot dispute because you cannot refute it.

    You are missing the point here. Holder made an accusation and now an official investigation has been launched, a real investigation, not one where birthers get to sell their book.

    As to prima facie evidence. Let’s look at what was presented:

    1. The online/digital copies of the COLB and the LFBC may show evidence of fraud.
    a. First of all, these are low resolution, compressed documents not the originals which were for instance photographed by FactCheck and Savannah Gurthrie.
    b. The ‘evidence’ such as layers/halos is easily explained by the compression approaches used
    c. The kerning is nothing more than wear and tear and found on other birth certificates such as Nordyke’s
    2. The Selective Services document’s numbers are in line with similar documents filed by Bruce Henderson, other than the fact that the B&W copy ‘misses’ the leading year digits, although the ’80’ lines up with other USPO stamps, suggesting a possible inking problem.
    3. The SSN has no evidence of fraud. The 1890, 1990 DOBs were all assigned to President Obama living at known addresses. Thus it is simple a database error of known unreliable databases. Note that these databases are not official SS database but rather collected from known unreliable sources. Even Daniels used to warn that these sources have many problems.

    So in the end there is really no evidence that amounts to anything probative. And if you really believe that there will be an official investigation or criminal complaints, you will be in for a surprise.

    Care to defend the findings by the Posse? Or have you learned from your previous follies? Remember trust but verify…

  113. nbc says:

    Al is still unable to do his own research and unwilling to defend the foolish accusations, thus merely repeating the assertions by others, allowing once again to be manipulated by those interested in spreading innuendo, myths and falsehoods.

    No personal responsibilities or pride… Nothing…

    Come on Al, present a real argument and defend it…

    I am sure you can do it if you try.

  114. Scientist says:

    Rickey: I am still waiting for a birther to explain to me what statute Obama is alleged to have violated. Even if we grant their fantasy that the LFBC is a forgery, how does that constitute fraud?
    To my knowledge, the LFBC which was shown to the press last year has never been presented to any governmental agency for any official purpose. Obama did not use it to get on the ballot; he did not use it to obtain a passport; he did not use it to obtain a library card. And what does the LFBC have to do with any laws of the State of Arizona?
    And as others have noted, if the Selective Service registration is a forgery it was perpetrated by someone in the Bush Administration.
    If Obama has been using a fraudulent SSN, why haven’t the posse “investigators” been able to connect it with another name?

    Even if everything alleged by Arpaio were true, I can’t see any locus within Arizona to charge a crime. The forgery of the b.c. was presumably not done iin Arizona, nor was it presented in Arizona to obtain anything of value. A crime in Hawaii or a federal crime if used to get a passport or SSN? Very possibly, but NOT an Arizona crime. Placing the forged draft registrattion in the National Archives? A federal crime, maybe a DC crime, but not Arizona. Using a fake SSN? Not used in Arizona.

    So there is NO crime for Arpaio to charge. He can turn his pile of poo over to the US Attorney and see if he wants to go for a federal indictment (yeah, right), but NO Arizona charges can be filed. I know the idea of jurisdiction is too hard for Halbert’s feeble mind, but there is none here for Arpaio.

  115. richCares says:

    actually Sheriff Joe is very upset with the biased reporting of his block buster presse as is Corsi. As I was reading Joe’s comment on bias I heard a loud explosion, it was my irony meters blowing up with irony. Joe is basing his opinion on a downloaded image instead of the paper copies he could get access to at the White House, wierd!

  116. nbc says:

    Scientist: If Obama has been using a fraudulent SSN, why haven’t the posse “investigators” been able to connect it with another name?

    Indeed, all the references to 1890 and 1990 Date of Births are linked to Barack H Obama living at an address known to have been his.

    So again, much ado about nothing…

  117. nbc says:

    richCares: Joe is basing his opinion on a downloaded image instead of the paper copies he could get access to at the White House, wierd!

    And the assertions about layers and halos are shown specious when understanding why a highly compressed document is expected to show evidence of both, as I have shown.

    I do not get it? They employed actual document specialists?

  118. Jim says:

    *YAWN* They really need to come up with some new material. As entertainers, they’re really falling down on the job. You’d have thought that with all the hooplah and Sheriff Joe, they could have at least come up with an alien sighting or a Soviet takeover of Hawaii back in ’61.

    I think I’ll head over to the Limbaugh site and see if he’s figured out a way to insult the Girl Scouts about women’s preventative care…I think that’s about all he’s missed.

  119. CarlOrcas says:

    Al Halbert: So Obama and Holder make an accusation without indictment and it is true without any evidence being given, only supposition or innuendo.

    Couple problems here, Al. First, the federal government has not made any criminal allegations against the Sheriff or his department (they may but nothing yet) so there has been no indictment.

    What there has been is a civil investigation of MCSO practices that has resulted in a public….very public and detailed…..disclosure of improper practices on the part of the MCSO.

    Go to the Arizona Republic site and do your own research on the subject. There are numerous stories plus links to several government reports including the original 22 page report.

    Despite a lot of posturing the Sheriff has agreed to work with the Federal government to remedy the practices. That’s a tacit admission that the practices occurred.

    As it regards this investigation by the Cold Case Posse…..well, there’s nothing to it. It’s a rehash of birther claims stretching back several years, at least. If the posse has, as they claim, real evidence of crimes (committed anywhere) they have yet to reveal them or really explain what they are.

    Other than that…………………………….

  120. veritas says:

    I really enjoy reading the comments on this web site. I do have some questions about Obama sending an attorney to Hawaii to get his birth certificate. First question I guess is why send an attorney? You can have the USPS send it for 45 cents. Did the attorney make the trip for free? Did Obama pay her himself, or did we the taxpayers pay her? Is it just me or does it seem a little strange to hire an attorney to make such a long trip to get a simple one page document. Maybe he could have sent a White house staff person instead. I think these are legitimate questions so please spare me the typical “birther” ridicule if you can.

  121. nbc says:

    Chain of custody… Once again…

  122. nbc says:

    veritas: . First question I guess is why send an attorney? You can have the USPS send it for 45 cents.

    Chain of custody.

  123. G says:

    As others have mentioned, chain of custody.

    Stop being so blatently obtuse and do your homework. There are official letters that clearly spell all of this out and specifically answer this entire line of questioning:

    http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/Birth_Certificate_Request.PDF

    http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/News_Release_Birth_Certificate_042711.pdf

    http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/obama.html

    veritas: I really enjoy reading the comments on this web site. I do have some questions about Obama sending an attorney to Hawaii to get his birth certificate. First question I guess is why send an attorney? You can have the USPS send it for 45 cents. Did the attorney make the trip for free? Did Obama pay her himself, or did we the taxpayers pay her? Is it just me or does it seem a little strange to hire an attorney to make such a long trip to get a simple one page document. Maybe he could have sent a White house staff person instead. I think these are legitimate questions so please spare me the typical “birther” ridicule if you can.

  124. Thomas Brown says:

    veritas:
    I really enjoy reading the comments on this web site. I do have some questions about Obama sending an attorney to Hawaii to get his birth certificate. First question I guess is why send an attorney?You can have the USPS send it for 45 cents. Did the attorney make the trip for free? Did Obama pay her himself, or did we the taxpayers pay her? Is it just me or does it seem a little strange to hire an attorney to make such a long trip to get a simple one page document. Maybe he could have sent a White house staff person instead. I think these are legitimate questions so please spare me the typical “birther” ridicule if you can.

    Ok… Let me get this straight… the same scumfux who hounded Obama for proof of his birthplace, to which no President in history has been subjected, are now demanding to know why a staffer was dispatched to Hawaii to bring it back?

    So it’s… “Show us your papers, boy! AND you better pay for doing so out of your own pocket! Step and fetch it lively, now, boy!”

    You people are pathetic. Really. Go crawl back under the sewer-cover you slithered out of.

  125. RuhRoh says:

    veritas: Did the attorney make the trip for free? Did Obama pay her himself, or did we the taxpayers pay her?

    Obama personally paid all costs associated with procuring his LFBC from HI.

    I sincerely doubt the attorney worked free of charge. The fee was probably pretty hefty as it probably took the attorney a minimum of two full days to make the trip, get the LFBC and then return to DC. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was three days.

  126. JoZeppy says:

    veritas: First question I guess is why send an attorney? You can have the USPS send it for 45 cents.

    That would be a legitimate approach (chain of custody is not necessary with a self authenticating document). But it does (or rather it should have) given the birthers one less thing to whine about.

    veritas: Did the attorney make the trip for free?

    We may never know. That information is protected by attorney client privilege. But many large firms to have “vanity” clients, like the President of the United States, that they don’t expect to pay (payment comes in the form of marketing information telling potential client the firm has the President as a client).

    veritas: Did Obama pay her himself, or did we the taxpayers pay her?

    I suppose in the sense that the President’s salary comes from the taxpayers, we are paying for it…but it was handled by the President’s private lawyers, so it would be expected that either he personally is paying, or the money is being spent by his campaign.

    veritas: Is it just me or does it seem a little strange to hire an attorney to make such a long trip to get a simple one page document.

    Not really strange. Nothing unusual about having your attorney handle a personal matter of importance (which handling this as formally as possible should have dispelled unreasonable doubts).

    veritas: Maybe he could have sent a White house staff person instead.

    Two issues…using White House staff would be using government resources for private matter. Secondly, good chance they would not release the document to just any staffer. An attorney is your personal representative, that can act on your behalf in ways other people cannot, so there is no doubt that birth certificate would be release to the attorney.

    veritas: I think these are legitimate questions so please spare me the typical “birther” ridicule if you can.

    Depends on how you define “legitimate.” For the most part, they’re fairly irrelevant, if you ask me.

  127. y_p_w says:

    I figure that we as taxpayers probably paid for the cost of the letterhead and the drafting of the original letter by a secretary. Maybe even the cost of the FAX machine.

    However, the Obamas have made money from book deals. I would think they could afford to pay for an attorney. It was also noted that the law firm might do this pro bono simply for the publicity it brings to the firm.

    Yeah – it probably could have been sent out by regular mail. However, sending a piece of mail directly to the White House is not without its perils. They get tons of pieces of mail each day, and almost none of it is of an official nature. I could easily imagine it getting lost in the shuffle of thousands of letters from elementary school kids.

    There are tons of things we pay for. Every trip by the President or First Lady to a campaign visit. Every time the Secret Service goes out with the President playing golf. I find it disingenous that there’s so much criticism of these things only when it’s “not my guy” in office, but nary a peep when it is.

  128. jayHG says:

    truxton spangler: You can, however, fool all of the birthers all of the time.

    POST OF THE DAY!!!

  129. Thomas Brown says:

    You guys are too polite.

    Birthers’ questions are almost never “legitimate,” because they aren’t interested in the answers. And they have done nothing to earn them a pass on being ridiculed. I mean, spend your time any way you like, but… you are showing them 100x as much respect as they show you. Personally, I don’t understand what seems like suffering fools gladly.

  130. RuhRoh says:

    Thomas Brown: You guys are too polite.Birthers’ questions are almost never “legitimate,” because they aren’t interested in the answers. And they have done nothing to earn them a pass on being ridiculed. I mean, spend your time any way you like, but… you are showing them 100x as much respect as they show you. Personally, I don’t understand what seems like suffering fools gladly.

    If someone asks politely, I sometimes respond.

    If I could only answer impolitely, I ignore the question.

  131. veritas says:

    Thanks jozeppy for your reply. This is what I find interesting, I ask a simple question, Why would anyone even the POTUS send an attorney all the way to Hawaii to fetch a document? The typical response is the one I received from Thomas Brown,

    “scumfux who hounded Obama for proof of his birthplace” ……I have not hounded Obama for anything.

    “demanding to know why a staffer was dispatched to Hawaii to bring it back?” …. Not demanding to know why a staffer picked it up rather an attorney.

    “You people are pathetic”… really?

    “Go crawl back under the sewer-cover you slithered out of.”… very nice reply Thomas.

  132. nbc says:

    veritas: I really enjoy reading the comments on this web site

    I personally enjoy your comments on Orly’s website… Love the way you egg her on. Hilarious.

  133. veritas says:

    nbc, what comments?

  134. Thomas Brown says:

    veritas:
    Thanks jozeppy for your reply. This is what I find interesting, I ask a simple question, Why would anyone even the POTUS send an attorney all the way to Hawaii to fetch a document? The typical response is the one I received from Thomas Brown,

    “scumfux who hounded Obama for proof of his birthplace” ……I have not hounded Obama for anything.

    “demanding to know why a staffer was dispatched to Hawaii to bring it back?” …. Not demanding to know why a staffer picked it up rather an attorney.

    “You people are pathetic”… really?

    “Go crawl back under the sewer-cover you slithered out of.”… very nice reply Thomas.

    It’s all you deserve.

  135. My problem with this question and a host of others like it is that you’re asking the wrong people. Nobody here to my knowledge works for Barack Obama and what you are asking us to do is speculate about why some third party did something.

    There’s nothing wrong with speculation except that I see (and others may not) a subtle suggestion that someone is somehow obligated to explain what Obama did, and explaining sounds like defending. I’m not all that happy about the community here being put on the defensive about something which doesn’t need defending, something about which no one has any direct knowledge and which is largely irrelevant to the purpose of the blog unless you intend to draw some conspiracy conclusion out of what happened.

    If you have a question that sounds appropriate for a White House press conference, it’s probably not appropriate here.

    veritas: First question I guess is why send an attorney?

  136. justlw says:

    veritas: The typical response

    No, actually, the typical responses you got were reasoned ones, including from at least one actual attorney.

    Yeah, a couple of over-the-top responses, too, but honestly, it’s nothing like the corresponding dialogue would be on a birther site — assuming the original post wasn’t blocked or deleted immediately, which is much more likely to be the case.

  137. I try to keep in mind that when one birther asks an annoying question there are perhaps a thousand mostly normal people that read my response.

    Yesterday we had 2,237 visits to the site where the visitor on average read 6 pages, and spent on average 7 1/2 minutes. 37% of the folks visiting were her for the first time.

    Thomas Brown: You guys are too polite.

  138. Thomas Brown says:

    I know, I know… the whole “it’s a fair question!” (c.f. Glenn Beck) thing just cheeses my grits sometimes. It’s no more honest than “why doesn’t Obama just clear this up?” etc.

    Sorry.

  139. CarlOrcas says:

    James M: There are some serious questions, such as whether Sheriff Arpaio deputized persons who aren’t eligible deputies, and whether the Sheriff’s office spent any public money on this investigation.

    Posse members aren’t “deputized”. They have no AZPOST certification and hence no police powers of any sort.

    As far as the legislature investigating Arpaio the chances of that happening are slim since Republicans control both houses by margins of 2 to 1.

  140. James M says:

    veritas: Did the attorney make the trip for free? Did Obama pay her himself, or did we the taxpayers pay her?

    Why don’t you ask a Birther? They have frequently claimed to how much money President Obama spends on attorney’s fees, so naturally they would have this information and would be able to tell you to the penny.

  141. James M says:

    CarlOrcas:

    Posse members aren’t “deputized”. They have no AZPOST certification and hence no police powers of any sort.

    As far as the legislature investigating Arpaio the chances of that happening are slim since Republicans control both houses by margins of 2 to 1.

    The question is whether Arpaio went beyond his authority by delegating de facto power to certain individuals. It’s clear that he lacks the authority, but it also appears that he may have done so anyway.

    As for the legislature, I’m aware of this, but I’m also hoping that in an attempt to preserve their status, they will be willing to throw Arpaio under the bus. They don’t really want to be too much on his side during an election year with federal heat coming down on indefensible things.

  142. James M says:

    JoZeppy:

    veritas: Did the attorney make the trip for free?

    We may never know. That information is protected by attorney client privilege.

    Then how do the Birthers know so much about how much President Obama spent to keep his records sealed???

  143. JPotter says:

    veritas: You can have the USPS send it for 45 cents.

    Besides being off-topic, you’re assuming Hawaii would mail this exceptional request for certified copies of the LFBC. The standard issue, which I assume they would handle by registered mail (costs little more than first class, skippy), is the certification, which just wasn’t good enough.

    Even if they would mail it, some people don’t trust their personal papers of the not-easily replaced variety to the US Mail.

    Finally, perhaps teh issuance of these exceptional documents required a witness. Perhaps personal service is required, which would require someone with power of attorney …. like, gosh, an attorney! She is paid specifically to handle the Presidents personal legal matters. I believe her fees and costs are paid from Obama’s income, possibly campaign funds. Certainly not directly from the US Treasury … if that were the case, someone from the DoJ would have made the trip.

    Hey, is this reasoning documented? No! Why not? Because you should be researching your own questions and presenting your own interesting findings! Attempting to contribute to the general understanding instead of attempting to muck it up.

  144. Thrifty says:

    In a sense, we probably did pay for the attorney, since President Obama’s $400,000 a year salary is paid for by the taxpayers.

    But since that’s his salary for doing his job, it’s his money to do with as he pleases.

    I read an article once, around the time of Obama’s inauguration, that pointed out how a surprising number of things you’d think come as perks of the job are actually coming out of the president’s pocket. Like, he gets a free house which includes a kitchen staff paid for by the taxpayers, but stocking that kitchen comes out of his own pocket.

    Presidents go on vacation, and they get taxpayer funded air travel on Air Force One and taxpayer funded security, but everything else comes from the president’s personal finances.

    People make some pretty bold assumptions about what a US president gets at the taxpayer’s expense.

    veritas: Did Obama pay her himself, or did we the taxpayers pay her?

  145. richCares says:

    courtesy of Patrick McKinnion – word on our silly friend
    .
    “Geir Smith posted to Dr. Orly Taitz
    this is the apocalypse. The Obots have lost. Obama’s backed off the Iran War and now Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s closing down on Obama. Next Monday he’s closing down Hawaii. Spread the good news NOW.
    .
    I was planning on going to Hawaii for a Family visit next year, should I cancel

  146. CarlOrcas says:

    James M: The question is whether Arpaio went beyond his authority by delegating de facto power to certain individuals. It’s clear that he lacks the authority, but it also appears that he may have done so anyway.

    If there was any indication that the posse had really done any investigating…..like checking police data bases, asking for information in the name of the sheriff, etc…..there would a case to be made that he and they exceeded their authority.

    That said he can do pretty much what he wants…..up to a point. Going beyond that point and charging people with crimes is what got him in trouble with members of the board of supervisors, local judges and the owners of The New Times..

    James M: As for the legislature, I’m aware of this, but I’m also hoping that in an attempt to preserve their status, they will be willing to throw Arpaio under the bus

    I don’t want to get this thread further off track but suffice it to say the Arizona legislature’s status ranks right up there with clowns who ride the little motorcycles in the Shriners parade.

  147. Whatever4 says:

    Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter:
    DrC:

    That was a very good book review!!! I can hardly wait to NOT buy the book!!!

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    We should not have a reading party and not read the book together.

  148. Arthur says:

    Whatever4: We should not have a reading party and not read the book together.

    I won’t be bringing booze.

  149. Whatever4 says:

    mimi:
    I suggest Mr. Halbert read the Columbia Journalism Review article on Joe Farah from 1996.Via The Wayback Machine:“The Vince Foster Factory”:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20080211120209/http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/96/2/foster.asp

    Mr. Halbert sounds like the audience Joe Farah is aiming for.Gullible.

    From the link: Farah says — “If we want to encourage a certain kind of reporting, the best way to do that is to pay for it.”

    Seems like he’s consistant.

  150. Whatever4 says:

    Loren:

    Loren — What does it say Corsi was looking for in international flights? I’m updating the TFB page tonight.

  151. justlw says:

    Whatever4: Columbia Journalism Review

    And we all know who “graduated” from Columbia University, and thus controls Columbia Journalism Review.

  152. John Woodman says:

    Loren: Like Doc says, virtually the only thing new’ in the book is the three pages about Corsi looking at INS flight records. That’s right: the only new’ material in the book was something *Corsi* did, not something any of the actual Posse members did.

    I was struggling to think whether there really seemed to be any evidence of any substantial and original investigation on the part of the posse itself. Other than printing a birth certificate onto safety paper, scanning it in and trying to optimize it (and I’m wondering whether Mara Zebest did that), I couldn’t really think of any.

    I’m also wondering whether their estimate of “2,200 hours of investigation” includes the entire birther careers of Jerome Corsi and Mara Zebest?

  153. Linda says:

    richCares:
    “That was a very good book review!!! I can hardly wait to NOT buy the book!!!”
    I’m beginning to admire Squeeky!

    Hey richCares, I was looking back at some older articles and saw your post describing your correspondence with a congressman, calling him out on his statements about Obama’s legal fees. Kudos!

  154. Loren says:

    Whatever4: Loren — What does it say Corsi was looking for in international flights? I’m updating the TFB page tonight.

    It says “investigators” were unable to locate “relevant” 1961 flight manifests, whatever that might encompass.

    It then goes on to say that they located INS records that all international passengers completed when flying from a foreign locale into Honolulu. It says they were NOT able to examine microfilm records for inbound passengers into New York, and it says absolutely nothing about passengers into any other US cities.

    It says that the Honolulu microfilm records were examined by Corsi. That “Two microfilm records were found for August 1961.” One reel was labeled as records from July 28, 1961 through August 7, 1961, and the second reel was labeled as records from August 8, 1961 through August 12, 1961. Those are the only two reels cited as having been examined.

    Thus, it’s false when they claim that Aug. 1-7 was the only week for 1961 missing, because:

    1) Honolulu was the only city in the entire US they mention having examined at all;
    2) They don’t mention looking FOR records from any months other than August, much less looking AT such records;
    3) Even for August 1961, they flat-out admit that they only found reels for records through August 12. So there appear to be no records for August 13-31 either, and thus they’re lying to say only the first week of August is missing.

  155. richCares says:

    LINDA “saw your post describing your correspondence ”
    Thanks
    a letter I wrote to him was hand delivered by my niece (I left Hawaii in 1969)

  156. Loren says:

    John Woodman: I was struggling to think whether there really seemed to be any evidence of any substantial and original investigation on the part of the posse itself. Other than printing a birth certificate onto safety paper, scanning it in and trying to optimize it (and I’m wondering whether Mara Zebest did that), I couldn’t really think of any.

    I can think of one thing: someone obviously did the stuff with the PIKA stamp in Chapter 3. Birthers had made accusations about the ’80’ year before, but I haven’t found where they’d specifically discussed the PIKA stamp and the notion that it was created by cutting up and reassembling a 2008 stamp. Plus, it and Corsi’s INS visit are the only things illustrated with new photos. (Granted, we don’t know for certain that the Posse took these photos, but let’s extend the benefit of the doubt for a moment.)

    That said, it’s hard to fairly call this effort an “investigation.” They took an existing Birther complaint, posited a new but fairly mundane explanation (’08’ reversed is ’80’!!!), and then conducted a completely pointless experiment to prove that a PIKA stamp could be cut up and put together backwards (‘We showed that ’08’ reversed is ’80’!!!). Duh. Proving the obvious with regard to the SS card can hardly be included under the umbrella of an ‘investigation’ into Obama’s eligibility.

  157. John Woodman says:

    Ah yes! The stamp.

  158. CarlOrcas says:

    CarlOrcas: I don’t want to get this thread further off track but suffice it to say the Arizona legislature’s status ranks right up there with clowns who ride the little motorcycles in the Shriners parade

    I’ve thought about it some more and I think I owe the clowns an apology.

  159. SluggoJD says:

    Al Halbert: The question at ISSUE doc is TRUST and Truth, which you will not allow!

    You poor, pathetic little amoeba.

  160. Thomas Brown says:

    “… and thus they’re lying to say only the first week of August is missing.”

    The Posse Report contains a blatantly intentional falsehood?!!

    Say it ain’t so!

  161. SluggoJD says:

    Al Halbert:

    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

    Spoken like a true expert on fools.

  162. Rickey says:

    Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter:

    That was a very good book review!!! I can hardly wait to NOT buy the book!!!

    I’m waiting for the audio book. Since it has two authors, it should be narrated by two people. I nominate Cheech and Chong.

  163. John Woodman says:

    Al Halbert: TRUST an

    Buddy.

    Let me tell you something.

    You shouldn’t trust anybody, until that person has earned your trust.

    As I have well learned during the past year, that includes people who are going to vote the same way you do in the next election.

    The thing that has been disappointing for me during the past year is finding out there are more people than I would have suspected supposedly on MY side of the aisle who are not worthy of trust, and who most DEFINITELY don’t care very much about truth.

    Some of these very same people trumpet up front that they are all about the TRUTH! Let’s get the TRUTH out! The TRUTH cannot be suppressed!

    And then, having announced their allegiance to the truth, they fill the public arena with pretty-sounding falsehood.

    When you point out to them that the things they are saying are factually false, they do one of the following things:

    * They ignore you.
    * They attack you personally, and call you ugly names.
    * They ridicule you in public.
    * They make false statements about you.

    What does it mean when honest, factual, TRUE statements without personal attack, profanity or objectionable material of any kind are heavily moderated or are outright deleted at most of the birther blogs out there?

    I’ll tell you what it means. It means that the birther blogs are not the home of freedom of speech, and they are NOT the home of truth.

    I disagree strongly with Dr. Conspiracy politically. But as far as I can tell, he’s never censored polite, factual discourse from birthers. I was in a thread with Dean Haskins in which Dean made many, many posts. Some, actually, were somewhat inflammatory. But Dean Haskins was allowed to speak.

    And in all the reading I’ve done at this blog, I’ve never known Dr. Conspiracy to say something, and then go and do the research and discover that what he was saying was untrue or did not stand up to scrutiny.

    I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done the research on statements by various birthers — Jerome Corsi, Doug Vogt, Mara Zebest, Paul Irey, Mario Apuzzo, Leo Donofrio, Dean Haskins, Karl Denninger, and various others — only to reach the conclusion that whatever they were saying just didn’t seem to be all they claimed (or in some cases thought) it was.

    If you haven’t had the same experience, it’s because you haven’t been researching things for yourself. It’s because you’ve been taking somebody’s word for it, because they’re saying just what you really, really want to hear.

    And yes, maybe their argument sound good at first blush. But that’s because you haven’t heard both sides.

    Almost all of the Arpaio posse’s claims have been debunked — by various people including myself — a long time ago. And most of the new ones have been debunked since the report was released last week.

  164. richCares says:

    I live in a fairly conservative neighborhood, we have only one birther. he’s a sad case, his teen daughter moved out and asked him not to attend her graduation, All the others laugh at the birthers. Being a birther has nothing to do with being a liberal or a conservative, it has more to do with being an idiot.

  165. G says:

    John, I hope you have found that nearly all of the people on this forum treat you with respectful conversation, even when there are political disagreements and differences.

    John Woodman: I disagree strongly with Dr. Conspiracy politically. But as far as I can tell, he’s never censored polite, factual discourse from birthers. I was in a thread with Dean Haskins in which Dean made many, many posts. Some, actually, were somewhat inflammatory. But Dean Haskins was allowed to speak.
    And in all the reading I’ve done at this blog, I’ve never known Dr. Conspiracy to say something, and then go and do the research and discover that what he was saying was untrue or did not stand up to scrutiny.

  166. nbc says:

    veritas: The typical response is the one I received from Thomas Brown,

    What these people do not know is that veritas is pretending to be a Birther at Orly’s and other sites.

    But what Veritas ignores is reasonable explanations. He protests a little too much. You do not have to pretend here Veritas, you are among friends…

  167. misha says:

    Rickey: Since it has two authors, it should be narrated by two people. I nominate Cheech and Chong.

    No stems, no seeds

    Acapulco Gold is a bad ass weed.

  168. misha says:

    Al Halbert: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can only make monkeys out of the voters once every four years. – Pat Paulsen

  169. The Magic M says:

    Whatever4: We should not have a reading party and not read the book together

    I’d change that to “We should have a not-reading party and not-read the book together”. Sounds more social. 😉

  170. The Magic M says:

    veritas: Why would anyone even the POTUS send an attorney all the way to Hawaii to fetch a document?

    Maybe to stop idiot birthers from claiming “someone at FedEx swapped the real BC for the fake one” if they had sent it by mail?
    Maybe it was the same reason why, as some birfers are happy to point out with a different explanation, Obama wasn’t “allowed to handle” the BC – so that no-one could say “he switched it for another one when nobody was looking”, y’know, since his real name is Barack Copperfield?

  171. Northland10 says:

    Loren: It then goes on to say that they located INS records that all international passengers completed when flying from a foreign locale into Honolulu.

    They keep ignoring his father’s INS record which states, multiple times, that his last entry to the United States was August 1959, in New York. The memo from 31 Aug 1961 stating that Stanley Ann was going to the University of Washington in the fall and the son was born in Hawaii is less than helpful to Corsi.

    I am not an attorney but, in my simple thinking, a printed record from the INS would carry more weight as evidence than Corsi’s, “unable to find” statement.

  172. John Woodman says:

    G:
    John, I hope you have found that nearly all of the people on this forum treat you with respectful conversation, even when there are political disagreements and differences.

    I have. At the same time, I am aware that there are rude people on both sides of the aisle.

    But yes. Nearly all the people on this forum — most of the birthers included, actually — have been decent. I think Dr. Conspiracy and others have done a good job of fostering a place where rational discussion can take place.

  173. John Woodman says:

    By the way, contrast that to a birther forum I visited, where some of the ugliest things imaginable were said about me, simply because I don’t at all agree with their beliefs and agenda. When I signed up and posted a factual defense, my post was removed and I was publicly further insulted by the host and banned from making any further posts or contacting any other member of the forum.

  174. Scientist says:

    I still have some questions regarding the draft registration:

    1. I always understood that personal records pertaining to a living person were exempt under FOIA. For example, Doc has asked for Stanley Ann Dunham’s passport records and received some of them, but the President’s records cannot be released. Nor can any living person’s tax returns or VA records be released without their coonsent. Yes, I have seen the birther web site on which there is a scanned letter from Selective Service. Still, color me sceptical about where the supposed registration form came from.

    2. What would be the motive to forge the form? Yes, failing to register is against the law. However, as far as I know, no one has actually been prosecuted. Regardless, the statute of limitations for failing to register in 1980 would have long expired in 2008. The enforcement is normally done through denial of student aid, yet we know the President received student loans (remember the morons in Iowa busted for peeking at his student loan records-the fact that the records exist means he had student loans).

    3. So again, what is the motive? Political embarrassment? Bill Clinton survived his “draft dodging” allegations and served 2 terms. And Obama would not have been dodging the draft as there was no draft ever during his adulthood. In a sense, this would be about as big a deal as forgetting to send in your car registration. And the supposed record didn’t surface until after the election anyway. Impeachment for forgetting to file a form 28 years before taking office? Hardly.

    4. The form supposedly came from the Archives in Novemeber 2008, while Bush was still in office. How many people would have had to be involved to slip something into the National Archives? It’s ridiculous.

    5. Supposedly the forgers were able to perfectly recreate a 1980-era form (the current form looks quite different and almost all registrations these days are on-line anyway) yet they couldn’t fake a stamp. This from a campaign that had $750 million. Ridiculous!

    I actually have much more, but you will have to buy my book:
    A Question of Idiocy
    Only $999.99 Cheap!

  175. John Woodman says:

    Scientist: It’s ridiculous.

    I think you’ve come up with a pretty good two-word summary of the birther movement as a whole.

  176. Sef says:

    Scientist: 1. I always understood that personal records pertaining to a living person were exempt under FOIA. For example, Doc has asked for Stanley Ann Dunham’s passport records and received some of them, but the President’s records cannot be released. Nor can any living person’s tax returns or VA records be released without their coonsent. Yes, I have seen the birther web site on which there is a scanned letter from Selective Service. Still, color me sceptical about where the supposed registration form came from.

    I remember hearing at the time that someone forged the President’s name and a new address to have it sent to him. Sounds like something actionable.

  177. J. Potter says:

    The Magic M: I’d change that to “We should have a not-reading party and not-read the book together”. Sounds more social.

    Biggest complaint against e-books: you can’t swap the dust jackets and read something awesome while appearing to read what you’re “supposed to be reading”!

    Not that any worthwhile prose ought to be insulted by a coat of birfer-wrap. 😉

  178. Scientist says:

    Sef: I remember hearing at the time that someone forged the President’s name and a new address to have it sent to him. Sounds like something actionable.

    Sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense. If I request my records under FOIA, don’t I have to prove I am me? Otherwise, I could file a FOIA request for all of Doc C’s records or John Woodman’s or Derek Jeter’s and I could receive them. I could also get all my competitor’s trade secrets from their FDA filings. And, of course, I doubt that anyone who released the records of the President-elect without being absolutely certain of what they were doing would still be employed at the Archives. Nor any of their supervisors.

    It seems like the first obligation of Sheriff Joe’s crack posse team ought to have been to confirm with the Archives that these records were: (a) from the Archives; (b) legally obtained. Because until you establish those 2 facts, they are without value in a court of law or anywhere else. You might just be wasting your 100s of hours of crack (more like crack-smoking) investigators time trying to establish that a birther forgery or a forgery made to punk the birthers was a forgery.

    Which would, of course, be ridiculous.

  179. Thomas Brown says:

    John Woodman: I have. At the same time, I am aware that there are rude people on both sides of the aisle.

    But yes. Nearly all the people on this forum — most of the birthers included, actually — have been decent. I think Dr. Conspiracy and others have done a good job of fostering a place where rational discussion can take place.

    Hi John,

    I have lost my patience and been more insulting to Birthers here at times than I would have liked to. But I try to gauge it to their attitude and deliver a ‘proportional response.’

    I don’t know if you caught it, but a fellow showed up here a few days ago named (?) Joseph. He had heard there were fishy things about the BC and eligibility questions, and challenged us with them. A few people (you may have been one), because he lacked the ugly Birther madness symptoms you describe above, patiently answered his questions. Then– amazing!– he actually was SATISFIED with the answers after doing a little more research and considering the arguments objectively. He thanked us and left.

    Joseph was the first fully ‘good-faith’ birther I have encountered. Early on in our exchanges on your Blog, you claimed there were such people, but I wasn’t sure.

    I stand corrected. And I am happy that folks like Joseph can get reliable and polite answers here.

    But my sliding scale of sarcasm and derision goes all the way to really hard cases like MichaelN or RamboIke, who, since they attack people like you, me, and our President as you describe above, in the vilest terms and for no good reason, deserve a taste of their own medicine. I can’t help it. Maybe it’s because such people think Liberals are easily intimidated, that they can bloviate and threaten, and we will cower and waffle. I feel I need to show them that this is not so. And subtlety is not my long suit.

    At some point I intend to write a respectful challenge to your brief political statement at the beginning of your book, where you seem to stand behind the right-wing talking point that Democrats have spent us into the predicament we are in now, and Congressional Republicans have been the fiscal conservatives. But this is not the time and place.

    I recommend your book to everyone who is in the range from middling to reasonable on the Birther scale, if I think it will actually make a difference…. which, presumably, is why you wrote the book in the first place… not just to ‘preach to the choir.’

    Best to you and yours.

  180. As I understand the birther view: There is a federal law barring anyone who failed to register for the draft from federal employment. Obama didn’t register for the draft. Therefore he is not eligible for federal employment, i.e., the Presidency.

    The argument fails on at least 2 points. First, the President did register for the draft. Second, Congress couldn’t make a law that added an additional eligibility requirement on a president; it would be unconstitutional.

    Scientist: What would be the motive to forge the form? Yes, failing to register is against the law.

  181. justlw says:

    Scientist: enforcement is normally done through denial of student aid

    Didn’t know that! Excellent point.

    yet we know the President received student loans (remember the morons in Iowa busted for peeking at his student loan records-the fact that the records exist means he had student loans).

    Also, his and Michelle’s released tax returns show their student loans being paid off.

    (It’s also worth re-iterating at this point in the narrative that since Occidental, Columbia and Harvard would necessarily have to know he graduated from a US high school, he could not qualify for any kind of “foreign student” anything.)

    So again, what is the motive?

    Someone noted that failing to register with the Selective Service disqualifies you from working for the executive branch, so there is a motive.

    The form supposedly came from the Archives in Novemeber 2008, while Bush was still in office. How many people would have had to be involved to slip something into the National Archives?

    This is the major brain stretcher, the usual combination of insidious omnipotent Lex Luthor genius and total Moe Howard incompetence.

    The thing you may not know is that the SSS Data Management system is in — wait for it — Chicago! [da da DAAAA]

    (OK, it’s actually in Great Lakes, Illinois, outside of Chicago and 40 miles away from Obama’s state senate district, but come on, throw the birfers a friggin’ bone.)

    So, faced with a missing SSS registration, the campaign manages to conjure up the right form, the right data, document numbers that are correct for 1980 — and even obtain what appears to be the same Maliki Station round dater stamp as was used on Bruce Henderson’s from. That’s team Luthor.

    They then hand it over to Team Howard, who now cut off the “19” a USPO stamp would have, for no readily explainable reason, and fills in a date that’s one day later than it should be.

    Back to Team Luthor, who, using the unstoppable power of “Places Kinda Near Chicago,” inserts it into the SSS records system.

    “Of course… a child could do it!”

  182. veritas says:

    The Magic M: Maybe to stop idiot birthers from claiming “someone at FedEx swapped the real BC for the fake one” if they had sent it by mail?Maybe it was the same reason why, as some birfers are happy to point out with a different explanation, Obama wasn’t “allowed to handle” the BC – so that no-one could say “he switched it for another one when nobody was looking”, y’know, since his real name is Barack Copperfield?

    I wonder why they were so adamant about him not handling or touching the BC?

  183. justlw says:

    veritas: I wonder why they were so adamant about him not handling or touching the BC?

    Of course you do. Does it give you a headache?

  184. Linda says:

    John Woodman:
    If you haven’t had the same experience, it’s because you haven’t been researching things for yourself. It’s because you’ve been taking somebody’s word for it, because they’re saying just what you really, really want to hear.

    Mr Woodman, that has been my experience, too. It is my nature to be cynical and with trusty laptop and internet, I try to verify most of what I read. When I first heard the rumors and allegations about Obama, I looked into it. I found it to be baseless, the BC was released and HI vouched for it. Case closed, or so I would have thought. I still don’t disregard their claims without checking it out myself, but after researching this stuff for about 4 years now, much of what I see is just rehashed or rephrased, nothing new. The birthers have cried wolf too many times. I would be hard pressed to believe anything they say, there is just too long a history of false allegations.

  185. JPotter says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Therefore he is not eligible for federal employment, i.e., the Presidency.

    Third point: elected officials aren’t viewed as employees … are they? Don’t have a federal pay grade, go through an interview / application process (in the traditional sense). At best, they are contract employees 😉

  186. bovril says:

    Err,

    He’s the President, he has important stuff to do, he has staff and they delegate mundane work to appropriate people..

    It’s like asking “Why doesn’t the CEO of Microsoft do Windows support calls”

  187. Thomas Brown says:

    nbc: What these people do not know is that veritas is pretending to be a Birther at Orly’s and other sites.

    But what Veritas ignores is reasonable explanations. He protests a little too much. You do not have to pretend here Veritas, you are among friends…

    Had me fooled. I took him for an actual Birfoon, what with all the trivial questions and a sort of “well, what about this?…. what about that?…. what about this?…” attitude.

    If Veritas isn’t a Birther, he’s a skilled keyboard thespian.

  188. RuhRoh says:

    Scientist: enforcement is normally done through denial of student aid

    justlw: Didn’t know that! Excellent point.
    ———–

    This actually happened to me. I was not required to register for the Selective Service (wrong gender), but got a nastygram from the government about my failure to register and all sorts of threats about my student loans.

    It was straightened out and I received my loans.

    To a Birther, however, this would probably mean that I am a transexual, rather than that someone made a clerical error somewhere along the way in registering me for something or other.

  189. richCares says:

    Sheriff Joe and Corsi both are crying the blues over no one paying attention to their tall tale. Here’sd a quote from the Sheriff:
    “Their pre-determined desire to discredit me and my office would not even allow them to consider listening to what was presented in an unbiased manner.”
    .
    “unbiased manner”, now that was really funny

  190. Scientist says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: First, the President did register for the draft.

    I am confident he did (since he received student aid); however, I would not base that statement on the document shown by the birthers. I simply don’t believe they were able to obtain it under FOIA, since the law bars release of personal records for living persons. No one has been able to show me wrong on that point so far or offer a crediible explanation as to the source of that document.

    As far as laws for federal employment, elected officials are not covered by such laws. For example, a felony conviction would bar you from federal employment, but not from being elected to Congress or the presidency. In fact, you can hold elective office while in jail (I remember reading about a few mayors who did so, but their names slip my mind). Charles Manson is not barred from being elected President-I suppose they would have to rig up the red phone in his cell. You could announce that you are a paid Chinese agent who will take all his orders from Beijing and that isn’t a legal bar. All of which makes restrictions based on being a natural born citizen seem kinda silly, doesn’t it?

  191. JoZeppy says:

    veritas: I wonder why they were so adamant about him not handling or touching the BC?

    Perhaps to protect the dignity of the Office of the President? The need to have a press conference was unseemly enough.

    or perhaps to give birthers an opportunity to make up bogus arguments that somehow if he doesn’t actually hold the document, or pictured with it, he could claim plausible deniability and protect himself from prosecution (since of course they KNOW it’s fake), or some other equally abusrd argument that lacks any support in the law. The only advantages of not having the President handling the document are entirely image. If the document was a fake, as birthers claim, merely not handling it would provide any legal defense, after he had a press conference acknowledging it. If it was a document that appeared on the internet in mysterious ways, like McCain’s fake, the and the various Kenyan forgeries, that’s one thing. But not a document that he claims he sent is attorneys to retrieve, and then had a press conference about. So why do you think they chose not to have the President pictured with it?

  192. Scientist says:

    It was James Michael Curley, long time Mayor of Boston (also Governor of Massachusetts and a Congressman), who was convicted of mail fraud while in office in the 1940s and continued running Boston from his cell.

  193. My understanding is that the personal exemptions are agency regulations and not part of the FOIA itself. For example, you can go online and check anybody’s Selective Service registration through an online system; a reporter did this to verify the social-security number Obama registered with. Unlike SSA systems, there is no restriction on who can use the SSS system.

    http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2010/05/orly_taitz_grabs_new_headlines.php

    The FOIA cover letter that goes with Obama’s SSS form is on the Internet too.

    http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/coffmansssltr.jpg%5D

    I really think the form is authentic.

    Scientist: I simply don’t believe they were able to obtain it under FOIA, since the law bars release of personal records for living persons. No one has been able to show me wrong on that point so far or offer a crediible explanation as to the source of that document.

  194. justlw says:

    bovril: It’s like asking “Why doesn’t the CEO of Microsoft do Windows support calls”

    They tried that, but they had to keep replacing the phones he threw across the room.

    (Not that I blame him. I used to do tech support. I remember quite clearly a time when I calmly asked the person, “May I put you on hold for a moment?”, pounded the handset on the desk a few times, then calmly resumed the conversation.)

  195. justlw says:

    …oh, I know someone who back in the early ’80s told me of getting phone help on Microsoft BASIC from billg himself.

  196. Whatever4 says:

    veritas: I wonderwhy they were so adamant about him not handling or touching the BC?

    It was meant to show that the Office of the President was above all that nonsense. He staffed it out. The visual was that The President wasn’t answering to Trump, that he wasn’t caving to a political terrorist.

    Most of what any president does in public is scripted for how it will look politically and symbolically.

  197. justlw says:

    “I took him at his word.”

  198. Speaking of that, I got a phone call yesterday from someone who said “I’m [some name] from the Microsoft Windows Technical Support Group.”

    I replied: “I don’t believe you.”

    He hung up.

    Should I have asked him for a birth certificate?

    bovril: It’s like asking “Why doesn’t the CEO of Microsoft do Windows support calls”

  199. Scientist says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: For example, you can go online and check anybody’s Selective Service registration through an online system; a reporter did this to verify the social-security number Obama registered with. Unlike SSA systems, there is no restriction on who can use the SSS system.

    I didn’t know that. So then, that, along with his having received student loans is ample proof that he registered (not that I doubted it anyway, not that it matters). the student loans were back in the 1980s and 90s, so obviously he registered wayyyy before 2008.

    Dr. Conspiracy: The FOIA cover letter that goes with Obama’s SSS form is on the Internet too.
    http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/coffmansssltr.jpg
    I really think the form is authentic

    Given that Debbie Schlussel is a birther, and birthers lie constantly (see RTM999) I am unwilling to go so far as to accept anything from her web site. My question comes down to this-Did the CCP simply take the form from the web site or did they attempt to verify it with SSS or the National Archives? Since they don’t say they verified it, I will assume the former.

  200. As do I.

    By the way, Corsi’s book “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” contains a screen shot of the online SSS verification on page 142.

    Scientist: My question comes down to this-Did the CCP simply take the form from the web site or did they attempt to verify it with SSS or the National Archives? Since they don’t say they verified it, I will assume the former.

  201. Horus says:

    Al Halbert: As one who has sat on a Federal Grand Jury for 18 months all that is needed is a synopsis of the evidence for probable cause.

    Yet you don’t know that a sitting US President CANNOT be indicted!

  202. Horus says:

    James M: Steve is the sort of politician who writes longhand thank you notes to constituents, so I actually expect to get a personal response to my request.

    Funny how that happens here in AZ, I actually had Ron Gould send a friend request on Facebook to me.

  203. Scientist says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: By the way, Corsi’s book “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” contains a screen shot of the online SSS verification on page 142

    So then those dastardly conspiracists had to not only insert a fraudulent paper record in the National Archives, they also had to insert a phony electronic record into the database. That is, dare I say, ridiculous….

  204. John Woodman says:

    Thomas Brown: At some point I intend to write a respectful challenge to your brief political statement at the beginning of your book, where you seem to stand behind the right-wing talking point that Democrats have spent us into the predicament we are in now, and Congressional Republicans have been the fiscal conservatives. But this is not the time and place.

    I think that’s already been done, Thomas, by a guy named Steven Stoft. I haven’t had the time or attention to go through all of his figures, etc., and confirm things — I don’t want to get wrapped up in multiple issues at once — but on a casual reading he seems to make a good case.

    And I’m prepared to admit that I may be wrong about the economics. At this point, I am not pushing a theory of who’s to blame. Further research would clearly be warranted before I could do that. At this point, all I can say is: We’ve got to do better than what we did to get us into our current state.

  205. Sef says:

    Scientist: Sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense. If I request my records under FOIA, don’t I have to prove I am me? Otherwise, I could file a FOIA request for all of Doc C’s records or John Woodman’s or Derek Jeter’s and I could receive them. I could also get all my competitor’s trade secrets from their FDA filings. And, of course, I doubt that anyone who released the records of the President-elect without being absolutely certain of what they were doing would still be employed at the Archives. Nor any of their supervisors.

    Maybe I’m remembering something related to the SSN stuff.

  206. Scientist says:

    John Woodman: And I’m prepared to admit that I may be wrong about the economics.

    Me, too. Probably all honest economists would as well.

    FWIW, I think too much is being made of deficits and the debt. For small countries that don’t control their currency, like Greece, they are obviously a huge issue. For the country that controls the world’s reserve currency, not so much. The US government is able to borrow for 10 years at <2%, which is a historic low and suggests that those wiith actual money at stake are not concerned. Does that mean that we shouldn't do prudent things to bring spending and taxes closer together over the long term? No. But it suggests to me that harsh austerity and making real people suffer to meet some arbitrary budgetary target is not only unnecessary, but counterproductive (which is also true for Greece).

    Of course, I may be wrong (see above).

  207. Thomas Brown says:

    And I’m prepared to admit that I may be wrong about the economics. At this point, I am not pushing a theory of who’s to blame. Further research would clearly be warranted before I could do that. At this point, all I can say is: We’ve got to do better than what we did to get us into our current state.

    Agreed.

    I tend to look at it the same way I do the Race and Crime issue: I say “Why not just leave it at the bad act?” Black folks shouldn’t let bad actors who are black off the hook; white folks shouldn’t pretend there are no white bad actors. Bad is bad. No excuses. Prosecute them as equally as possible and be done with it.

    Same with the Democrat and Republican issue. Both are entirely too willing to excuse or minimize he same act they holler bloody murder about when the other side does it. I think Karl Rove is behind the recent Republican playbook of “Everything Democrats want or believe is bad.” I think that’s a mistake, and can’t possibly be true, any more than “Everything Republicans think is bad” can be.

    Stupid, wasteful spending is stupid and wasteful; it doesn’t matter whether the ink is blue or red. If both sides can’t admit that some of the spending, or tax cuts, or loopholes, or whatever, that they fought for in Congress was a mistake, we’re in for a bumpy ride.

    I think Obama scored points with the public when during the debates he sometimes agreed with the Republican candidate. Plenty of perfectly good ideas come from the Right. McCain, on the other hand, seemed to have been coached to disagree with everything Obama said, no matter what, and it sometimes backed him into a corner.

    If you agree that a one-party system would be a bad thing for America, it behooves us to improve them both… maybe push them more toward the Loyal Opposition model and away from the Shootout at the OK Corral model we have today.

    This is why many Conservatives are saying “Throw Birtherism under the bus,” and why honorable Liberals like me, who only stand to gain politically if they don’t, would rather they did.

    Because America is better off with a sensible Republican Party than a crazy one.

  208. John Woodman says:

    Thomas Brown: This is why many Conservatives are saying “Throw Birtherism under the bus,” and why honorable Liberals like me, who only stand to gain politically if they don’t, would rather they did.

    Agreed, except that I wouldn’t characterize it at all as “throwing birtherism under the bus” — which implies sacrificing a friend for some political cause.

    I’d say rather, “throw Birtherism in the trash — because from the factual point of view, that’s where it belongs.

    If Birthers had a good case — either in regard to Obama having been born somewhere else, or his birth certificate being forged, or the Constitution requiring two citizen parents at birth for natural born citizen status — then I would be behind them.

    But they simply don’t have a good case in regard to any of the above. It’s all agenda-driven horse manure and lies that the country is being dragged through — at least to the extent that they can promote their propaganda and suck in the gullible and uninformed.

  209. Thomas Brown says:

    John Woodman: Agreed, except that I wouldn’t characterize it at all as “throwing birtherism under the bus” — which implies sacrificing a friend for some political cause.

    I’d say rather, “throw Birtherism in the trash — because from the factual point of view, that’s where it belongs.

    An insightful correction. I would expect nothing less.

  210. JPotter says:

    Thomas Brown:
    Because America is better off with a sensible Republican Party than a crazy one.

    On that note:
    GOP Stuck in a Conservative Wonderland
    http://www.cagle.com/2012/03/gop-stuck-in-a-conservative-wonderland/

  211. Scientist says:

    John Woodman: If Birthers had a good case — either in regard to Obama having been born somewhere else, or his birth certificate being forged, or the Constitution requiring two citizen parents at birth for natural born citizen status — then I would be behind them.

    Let’s look at those different situations:

    1. If a President’s b.c. was forged and he knowingly participated-then I think almost everyone would agree impeachment would be warranted
    2. If it was unknowing, but he was born outside the country, it might never be satisfactorily resolved whether he was eligible or not. So, I wouldn’t be with the birthers in that case either. And if you were with the birthers, what would you have done?.
    3. Suppose your reading of the law was that 2 citizen parents are required. Still, Congress and the courts say otherwise. Do you think your opinion should trump theirs and the voters? So would you really be with the birthers there?

  212. G says:

    A much better and apt analogy.

    John Woodman: I’d say rather, “throw Birtherism in the trash — because from the factual point of view, that’s where it belongs.

  213. G says:

    That was an excellent article! I concur with most of the author’s portrayal and how he summed up what is going on with the modern GOP and how they have caused their own mess. I felt this snippet captured the heart of the issue the best:

    Of course this is mere political theater; symbolism substituting for substance. The politics of emotional gratification does not result in progress in any policy area- it does not lead to solutions. It is simply a series of empty gestures strung together.

    The far-right’s capture of the GOP has gone largely unchallenged by more responsible voices within the Party. Jon Huntsman, for example, was the sole presidential candidate willing to directly confront the prevailing orthodoxy on climate and evolution. Perhaps this isn’t surprising, given the viciousness of the attacks directed at dissenters. The passion for purging and purity, and the primaries that resemble nothing so much as heresy trials, highlight a critical fact about the far-right. In Conservative Wonderland, dissent- thoughtcrime- is the political version of a capital offense.

    I agree with the author that RINO is really something that should be born as a badge of honor. Where I disagree is that I think the RINOs need to abandon the current cancer of the GOP altogether in order to fashion a new responsible party home. I think the brand is too far tarnished and infected by the extreme craziness to simply recover on its own. All loyalists are doing is continuing to prop up and support what is nothing more than a continuing downward spiral into madness and further irresponsibility. I think the time has long passed where reasonable folks could take back control and restore the GOP. The cancer is simply too ingrained now.

    JPotter: On that note:GOP Stuck in a Conservative Wonderlandhttp://www.cagle.com/2012/03/gop-stuck-in-a-conservative-wonderland/

  214. Keith says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Speaking of that, I got a phone call yesterday from someone who said “I’m [some name] from the Microsoft Windows Technical Support Group.”

    I replied: “I don’t believe you.”

    He hung up.

    Should I have asked him for a birth certificate?

    I got one of those in Australia! They didn’t say they were Microsoft though, I couldn’t drag out of them who they claimed to represent.

    They just kept trying to tell me they were getting “virus error messages from my router” when I asked for contact information. We are on the Australian “Do Not Call” register, and I was trying to get call back info for them to lodge a complaint.

    Of course these scams are also listed on the Australian Federal Police Scam Register already, and there is no way in hades that the guy was going to give me his contact info. I wouldn’t have understood it anyway; his Sri Lankan accent was so thick I could barely make out anything he said at all.

  215. Keith says:

    J. Potter: Biggest complaint against e-books: you can’t swap the dust jackets and read something awesome while appearing to read what you’re “supposed to be reading”!

    Biggest complaint against e-books: you can’t get porn on ’em.

  216. Keith says:

    justlw: (Not that I blame him. I used to do tech support. I remember quite clearly a time when I calmly asked the person, “May I put you on hold for a moment?”, pounded the handset on the desk a few times, then calmly resumed the conversation.)

    I know the feeling.

    All too well.

  217. misha says:

    John Woodman: It’s all agenda-driven horse manure and lies that the country is being dragged through — at least to the extent that they can promote their propaganda and suck in the gullible and uninformed.

    Mr. Woodman: Some people are one issue voters. I am a 2-issue voter:

    – Which president will be best for the 1st Amendment? That is really what contraceptive coverage was about – an attempt to breach the wall between church and state. Santorum said states have the right to ban contraceptive sales. He either does not know, or forgot, about Griswold v. Connecticut. It was settled in 1965.

    – Which candidate ties a dog to the roof of his car, for 12 hours, causing the dog to have a romney?

  218. keith says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Speaking of that, I got a phone call yesterday from someone who said “I’m [some name] from the Microsoft Windows Technical Support Group.”

    I replied: “I don’t believe you.”

    He hung up.

    Should I have asked him for a birth certificate?

    I was just now talking to the Executive Officer at the Historical Society where I do some volunteer work. Her Father got scammed on this (in Australia) – he actually gave them his credit card details. He has cancelled his credit card now, but is resisting getting his machine checked out.

    The XO got the same call a few days later. Her brother got the same call in the UK. They called the father’s weekend lake house twice while no one was home. Friends have gotten the call. She doesn’t believe that her father had any addresses on the machine to have enabled the scammers, but those guys are clever little devils.

  219. J. Potter says:

    Keith: Biggest complaint against e-books: you can’t get porn on em.

    Well, that’s not quite true …. depends on your definition of ebooks. If you mean what’s available on branded platforms like Nook or Kindle, yeah, you’re out of luck. Broaden your definition to all digitized publications, and you can find anything in PDF form.

    My previous position was with a “digital publisher” that was translating PDFs into Flash and HTML5 content, and incorporating interactivity and multimedia. They hosted some racy titles … including a title dedicated to “vinyl lifestyles” … but no porn.

  220. misha says:

    veritas: First question I guess is why send an attorney? You can have the USPS send it for 45 cents.

    Lionel does not cross the Pacific ocean.

  221. misha says:

    veritas: Why would anyone even the POTUS send an attorney all the way to Hawaii to fetch a document?

    “Fetch”? His attorney is not a dog. The word you want is ‘retrieve.’

    Obama, unlike Willard Romney, does not tie a dog to the roof of his car, for 12 hours. Or torture a dog to death, like David Huckabee.

    Seems to be a pattern here.

  222. misha says:

    John Woodman: When I signed up and posted a factual defense, my post was removed and I was publicly further insulted by the host and banned from making any further posts or contacting any other member of the forum.

    That’s because birthers are right wing subversives and fascists. Joseph Farah is a Phalangist, Orly Taitz is an authoritarian, and the rest are subversives far more dangerous than anyone on the left. See Timothy McVeigh.

  223. gorefan says:

    This from Mara Zebest’s MCSO Cold Case Posse report,

    “The PDF birth certificate document released by the White House
    (shown in Figure 1) is a completely manufactured and fabricated
    computer generated image. The same source file was used to
    print a copy handed to the AP (shown in Figure 2), in which the
    AP scanned in the version handed to them. A third photograph
    version (Figure 3) was touted by Savannah Guthrie who claimed
    to have held and felt the seal on the document, but the original
    Internet posted images have been scrubbed.”

    Apparently she doesn’t know how to use google. Savanh Gunthrie’s photos are right where they have always been.

    http://lockerz.com/s/96540937

    What an incompetent boob.

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