Is Dr. Conspiracy an accomplice?
Geologist, Biblical archaeologist and scanner salesman Doug Vogt has filed a new complaint against Barack Obama and others (with affidavit, attachment and exhibits) in US District Court for the Western District of Washington. Just when I was about to mulch and cover all the legal stuff for the winter, this new sprout appeared October 18. The brief was assigned to the Honorable James L. Robart, graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, nominated to the Court by President George W. Bush in 2003.
We’ve seen a range of legal theories put forward by birthers—quo warranto, qui tam, election challenges and plain old redress of grievances—and none of them has gone anywhere. This one, number 206 by my count, takes on a form I haven’t seen as the sole basis of an action before: “Notice of Commission of a Felony.”
So what is the legal theory behind this action? It goes back to one of the birther shiny objects, “18 USC § 4 – Misprision of felony,” usually directed at third parties. The law literally says that if you have knowledge of a felony, you have to report it. Vogt is reporting it. The courts have ruled that violation of this statute requires intentional concealment (United States v. Johnson (1977) “The mere failure to report a felony is not sufficient to constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 4”), and certainly just having common knowledge gained from trolling the Internet or sifting the bits of documents on the White House web site doesn’t count. Vogt also invokes “18 USC § 2382 – Misprision of treason” in like manner. (If everybody did this, the courts would be overflowing with wacko conspiracy theorists.) Even if the statute required uninvolved folks to report a felony, and Vogt actually knew something, he admits that he already did this on multiple occasions:
I already notified the FBI in Hawaii and the FBI Director in Washington D.C. three times…but with no action or response…
So rather than just notifying authorities to CYA, Vogt is actually making a nuisance of himself by trying to prosecute the imagined offenses, trying to present them to a federal grand jury through a federal judge, since no real law enforcement gave him the time of day.
Vogt puts forward 20 points that he says prove forgery of both the long and short form certificates, the usual long-discredited stuff. He brings forward one new claim I hadn’t seen, that an authentic birth certificate for Obama must be dated August 11 instead of August 8. The rest deal with the raised seal (or lack thereof) and lot of Paul Irey’s typography stuff. Vogt, a copier and scanner expert, seems not to be aware that you can reduce an image while photocopying it, which appears to be the case with the President’s long form certificate. He also seems to be unaware of the PDF generation characteristics of certain Xerox office machines when he claims that the halo effect seen in the President’s long form PDF is proof of manipulation by a forger. He’s also completely mistaken when he said, “Savannah, MSNBC White House reporter at that time who was the only one allowed to see one of the forged Birth Certificates from Hawaii….” The Press Gaggle transcript clearly shows that the entire White House press corps was shown the certificate including the seal, held up by Obama attorney Robert Bauer.
In the action (“lawsuit” is really not the right term for this), In Re: Douglas Vogt, Vogt names Barack Obama, Robert Bauer, Daniel Pfeiffer, Judith Corley, Chiyome Fukino, Neil Abercrombie, Loretta Fuddy, John Doe and Savannah Guthrie. He claims that the President’s birth certificate is a forgery, and he claims that he knows who forged it! The names of the forger and two accomplices are disclosed in documents he is attempting to file under seal. The others named are attorneys for Barack Obama, White House Officials, Hawaii government officials, and a reporter for NBC news. One John Doe is some unnamed person at the Hawaii Department of Health who had access to the DOH embossed seal, but who according to the complaint didn’t do anything with it (that one left me scratching my head); others are unnamed broadcast news executives. In true conspiracy theorist fashion, we have the mysterious unnamed foreign agent who financed the caper and the one in charge of an “organized campaign of disinformation.” Finally we have the Jane Does, one who was a spy for the Obama Administration who put out other forged birth certificates so as to obscure the certificate number and date anomalies (that is, Vogt has no evidence that the certificate numbers are out of order, so he invents someone who created the considerable evidence contradicting that theory).
Finally we have the central character, Jane Doe #2, the forger whose name is in the document Vogt wants to seal. Why under seal? See if you can follow this justification for the seal:
If this person’s identity is made public prior to an investigation by a grand jury and/or executing of search warrants to secure easily destroyed computer evidence, proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the forger’s complicity in perpetrating the worst fraud on the electorate of these United States, may well be lost. The other reason is that the main principles in this forgery case may have this person murdered as well as the spouse.
If there were a real forgery (which there isn’t) then the persons involved know the identity of the forger as does the forger. So Vogt is broadcasting his information to the ones he wants to conceal it from, while hiding it from everybody else. If he really wanted to preserve the evidence, he would have filed the whole thing under seal. Douggie is apparently not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
I wondered whether or not I could be one of the John Does in the complaint, and the best fit I could come up with is:
John Doe #8, (identified in the Sealed Affidavit) the person who did the research for the information that would go in each form box of the Obama COLB forgeries.
The President’s birth certificate is not forged, so I could not have helped forge it, but Vogt might have latched onto my 2009 reconstruction of Obama’s long form and spun his conspiracy from that.
If any of the legal wonks reading this would comment, I have some of questions:
- If someone is named in an action under seal, can the person named request this information from the court? [commenters seem to lean towards “no”]
- Is it possible to defame someone by what is written in a legal complaint (I was thinking of someone like Savannah Guthrie)? [Commenter answer: “no”]
- Can federal judges refer matters to a grand jury? [Reply from commenter: “yes”]
This action is
One commenter suggests that Judge Robart will dismiss the thing for “failure to state a claim.” However, since it’s not a lawsuit, I’m not sure it can be dismissed. We can only hope that whatever results, it comes with a little lecture on why such actions are inappropriate.
Update:
When Vogt’s case was appealed to the Supreme Court, the seal was lifted, and indeed Kevin Davidson (aka Dr. Conspiracy) was John Doe #8.
- Docket reference
Doug Vogt has filed a case in federal court in Washington State. He says he knows who the forgers and their accomplices are, but he has requested that the names be kept under seal so that the guilty parties don’t try to destroy evidence. For the sake of the innocent people who he has named in his sealed documents, I hope the court keeps the information sealed.
It looks like he filed this ‘lawsuit’ (I’m not sure that’s the proper terms for what he’s requesting) to get the court to conduct an investigation or convene a grand jury. The docket with links to the documents Vogt filed is here: http://ia601904.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.wawd.196544/gov.uscourts.wawd.196544.docket.html
He’s filed against all the usual suspects, a select group from the WH staff, 8 (count’em 8) “John Doe”s, and …. Savannah Guthrie! Man, I hope she’s lawyered up.
So, should he be graced with a hearing, will he be faced with just 1 Empty Chair, or a whole tribe of’em? Only takes one to win.
And has this helped him sell any more copies of Reality Revealed?
I hadn’t been to “Vector Associates” in a long time … I see no new titles published (c’mon, Doug!), just a new subject area, “Political”, with only 1 topic (Vogt’s PDF madness ramble), and the promise (threat!) of a new book forthcoming on the same. Joy.
I’m not a lawyer Doc, but maybe you should get a fake attorney to defend you from this faux complaint… 😉
Vogt also asked the court to withdraw his sealed daffydavit if they choose not to approve his request to file it under seal. It sounds like he is trying to pull a CYA maneuver to make sure no one can sue him for defamation. He probably knows he is too much of a pissant for the named defendants to bother with him. I might take the time to email NBC a link to this POS just in case they wish to do something. I doubt it but you never know.
The last gasps of desperation!!!!! Pass out the life preservers, and go to your assigned stations promptly. This is not a drill. The S.S. Birther is taking on water quickly. Man the pumps. Captain, First Mate and crew will abandon ship first. Contributors in Second Class will be left on board holding the bag. More contributions will be gladly accepted as ship wrecks are very expensive. Ohhhh the humanity!!!!
Another Jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none birther?
Doc… you may already have them all, but for handy reference…
http://www.scribd.com/collections/4376738/IN-RE-DOUGLAS-VOGT
All the docs as of today.
I hear that Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe handles such cases. You should call their paralegal, Ima Shyster.
Doc, “Finally we have the central character, Jane Doe #2, the forger whose name is filed under seal.”
Classic C.Y.A.
If you look at the thing closely, Vogt never accuses any named person of a felony. For example, he claims Obama benefited from the forgery, not that he even knew about it.
Earlier when I searched for “Vogt” in the Jack Ryan collection I didn’t find them. Scribd’s search function isn’t very good or maybe I was too early.
So what does a court do with this? Say “noted” and close it?
I have a legal degree you know:
De Facto Juris Doctor Pro Hac Vice
Under section 1915, dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
I suspect you’re right about them taking a pass on this nonsense but I was just reading the Notice of Commission of a Felony blah blah and he has clearly defamed Savannah Guthrie. On page two he says:
“The forth (cq) point of forgery is that there is no evidence of an embossed Hawaiian Department of Health (DOH) seal on the COLB and that NBC journalist Savannah Guthrie publicly misrepresented that fact to advance her carrier(cq);”
I don’t believe there is any privilege for comments made in these sorts of legal filings but would like to hear more from real lawyers on that and, as Doc asks, what does the court do now with the mish mosh.
I charge Douglas Vogt with Mispision of Stupidity.
Now, wasn’t Vogt an expert for Zullo and the CCP? We haven’t heard from Zullo for a couple of weeks and now Vogt files this. Sounds like the CCP is falling apart right before our eyes…and entertainment! 😀
As I remember, he was one of their star “experts.” I also believe that Vogt was associated with Taitz. Lord Monckton of Benchley has also used some of Vogt’s research. Quite the cast.
Works for me.
Statements made during the course of litigation are generally privileged.
Klayman does this kind of smear job all the time in his lawsuits.
This article has been updated to insult Vogt a little more:
“If he really wanted to preserve the evidence, he would have filed the whole thing under seal. Douggie is apparently not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
Not that he knows it, but assertions made in pleadings cannot be the basis for a defamation lawsuit.
To answer your questions, yes, a federal court can refer information to a federal grand jury (18 USC sec. 3332.). But it is at the court’s discretion and initiative; you can’t ask the court to forward your “evidence.” Well, you can ask, like Vogt has, but the request will be tossed, unanswered — which is in effect the answer.
The question about requesting access to the sealed information is a bit trickier, but I suspect the court will deny Vogt’s request to file it under seal, and then return it to him.
Any chance of sanctions…..for being stupid in a courthouse, or something like that?
Doc….”3.Can federal judges refer matters to a grand jury?”
“http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/FederalCourts/Jury/grandhandbook2007.pdf”
According to this document “Matters may be brought to its [Federal Grand Jury] attention in three ways.”
1. By a Government Attorney.
2. By the Court that impaneled it.
3. From the personal knowledge of a member of the grand jury or from matters brought to a members personal attention.
I see The Daily KOS has the story:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/26/1250756/-Wingnut-Lawsuit-Names-NBC-s-Savannah-Guthrie-as-Accomplice-in-Birther-Conspiracy?showAll=yes#
I see Vogt uses his usual law firm, Kruger & Dunning.
The docket shows two “restricted” documents, but no order on sealing them.
http://ia601904.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.wawd.196544/gov.uscourts.wawd.196544.docket.html
Where’s the knacker’s yard when it’s really needed?
That’s standard. Documents aren’t under seal until so ordered by the court. So until the court makes a ruling they are in a limbo — not sealed but not available to public inspection; not filed, but being held by the court until ordered filed (or returned).
The order to seal has to come from the judge. So naturally there’s some delay while these documents make their way to the top of the pile.
So what do the other parties (defendants – assuming they were even served) do with this, if anything?
Or does the court just throw it out on its own without bothering the other parties?
Until they are served, the other folks named are not properly parties to the action, and need not do anything. I suppose they could be proactive and file something. I think the Court, in this case will just dismiss it sua sponte.
Vogt does this, while Zullo can’t even get his local PA to accept his evidence? It sounds to me like a last ditich move by the crew of the S.S. Birther. Ahoy! Iceberg dead ahead!
It certainly sounds like Vogt is getting impatient waiting for Zullo or Congress to do something or anything for that matter.
Zullo has not performed up to Birther expectations with all of the questionable twists and turns. The Birther crew is probably very impatient with him. Watch for this to get thrown out of court in an expedient manner. The fact is, there is nothing left for Zullo and his Birther experts to do. The President was born in Hawaii.
The other day I was reviewing a legal malpractice lawsuit in which the plaintiff was suing the attorney who represented her in a personal injury case. In her pleadings she accused her attorney of conspiring with the defense attorney to settle her case for less that it was worth, and she also also accused her attorney of committing perjury. She lost the lawsuit and in any other context her accusations would be considered defamatory, but her lawyer had to be satisfied with winning the lawsuit. He asked for sanctions, but as we know judges are extremely reluctant to sanction non-attorney pro se plaintiffs.
I must say, having a shiny new birther legal thingy to play with brings memories of the good old days.
And not only is this one new, but it lends itself very well to the type of analyses that the people on this forum do so well. Vogt makes a lot of uninformed ‘factual’ assertions that lead to absurd conclusions–tailor-made for debunkers.
Doc …..”Finally we have the central character, Jane Doe #2, the forger whose name is filed under seal.”
Who is Jane Doe #2??? Do we win anything if we get the name right?
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To me, Vogt’s filing is so weird it is hard to figure what procedures would follow.
Note that the complaint (and other documents) do not name defendants in the caption. Instead, he merely lists “Persons Involved” in the body of the document. Further, note that no summons have been issued to be served upon anyone. Although the docketing clerk lists Vogt’s “Persons Involved” as “Parties”, I imagine it is because the docketing clerk is as baffled as the rest of us.
Seems to me that he cannot name any defendants, even if he wanted to. This is not a civil action; he is not suing anyone, and the type of relief he is requesting doesn’t even exist in civil law. And he certainly has no authority to name anyone as a criminal defendant.
And why did he even file anything? If he is so concerned that he could be charged with misprision-of-something for failing to notify a judge, why not just send such notification to the judge via certified mail? Easy, no? Wouldn’t even have to have the letter “sealed”. And then, if the judge found Vogt’s allegations/evidence compelling enough to convene a grand jury, the judge could do so–without any filed petition from Vogt.
So, I guess the question remains: Why did he file this thing? To defame with privilege? For the publicity associated with possessing the most important and secret birther secret of all? (There could be a murder!) Because a birther-attorney advised him that he needed the requested court order to avoid prison for misprision?
p.s. while a defamatory court filing may not be the basis of a defamation action, it is sometimes possible to sue someone for abuse of process or malicious prosecution where the purpose in making a filing is improper–e.g., harassment.
Nah, this is Vogt striking out on his own, further embarrass any remaining attempt by any party to appear to be the official “Head Birfer” … remember all the ignoble rivalries of yesteryear … Taitz v. WND (Corsi/Farah/Arpaio/Zullo/Klayman/Vogt/Irey/Gillar) v. Haskins, with Berg, Apuzzo, Donofrio, all running their own birther oracles at various points?
Yep, sweet, closer to mainstream coverage, upping the embarrassment! But while they did refer to Vogt as a “cartoon character”, they didn’t really paint the picture of all-in crazy for the uninitiated. Booo.
I have a legal question, too …. if a person is referred to in a filing like this, as a John/Jane Doe, and the name is sealed, and the court tosses the whole thing, are the John/Jane Doe’s ever notified? I’d like to know if some crank had me in their sights!
I assume that if the action was accepted, not dismissed out of hand, that the parties would be notified, whether the names remained sealed or not .. so they could make an appropriate response. Like … laughing their ass off 😀
Do you think there is any chance of sanctions?
Do I understand you correctly that beyond a possible abuse of process claim there really isn’t any recourse for people defamed by this sort of thing?
I see Gillar has weighed in on that DailyKos thread with a new (to me) phony claim and video about a newly discovered clipping mask. Is that new to anyone else?
He isn’t claiming there’s a “new” clipping mask (at this point in the game, with PDF Madness dying of old age, that would be ridiculous), he says there is information “hidden” by the clipping mask in the LFBC PDF that doesn’t appear in Guthrie’s photos. Which is itself … ridiculous. In the video, he obsesses over marks at the very edge of the scan. Guthrie’s photos are not of the entire document. Nor, since TWO copies were obtained from Hawaii, are they necessarily of the copy that was scanned.*
He also says, after claiming that the CCCP “owns” a Xerox 7655 (these things are normally leased 😛 (and, rthey just happen to have the particular model in question? LOL!)):
If you can’t beat’em, pretend to join’em, eh, Gillar? 😉
(Referring back to KOS, it looks like the Gillar comment I am referring to has been removed(?) … the comment in which he links to his shiny video is still up.)
* All that said, if the claim was new to you, how can you call it “phony”? Of course birther claims can be assumed to be phony, but making assumptions are bad form.
You can buy a refurbished model through Amazon for $3,855.55 to $4,500 (plus shipping, I assume).
http://www.amazon.com/Xerox-Workcentre-7655-Multifunction-Refurbished/dp/B008DWQKUQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382842423&sr=8-1&keywords=xerox+7655
I’m sure Posse Headquarters are just chock full of the machines so they can be sure they have the right one.
Yikes, and so was that grammar LOL
Yep, but why make the claim, if the CCCP’s dismissals of the truth are to be believed to carry any weight?
Seriously, what size shoe does the average birfer wear? No matter what they try, they can’t seem to hit anything above their own ankles!
Besides, why spend money on a copier that none of them are smart enough to know how to use, let alone set up. My understanding is that it takes a really competent IT person to set up that type of unit and get it hooked up properly to a network, which is what they are going to have to do if they are going to try and repeat the process, and I doubt seriously that any of them, always providing that there is a them outside of the Klown Prince, who could manage to set up a real copier and get it connected to whatever they are using for a computer, let alone actually competently use the computer. And why would they do that anyway, when they have been proclaiming loudly that the copier couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it? More importantly, where would they get that kind of money to begin with, I’m betting donations are down to like nothing, and I really seriously doubt Shurf Joe is going to dip in to his slush fund for these crazies.
“Stupid” is the word that comes quickly to mind.
JPotter “Nah, this is Vogt striking out on his own, further embarrass any remaining attempt by any party to appear to be the official “Head Birfer” … remember all the ignoble rivalries of yesteryear … Taitz v. WND (Corsi/Farah/Arpaio/Zullo/Klayman/Vogt/Irey/Gillar) v. Haskins, with Berg, Apuzzo, Donofrio, all running their own birther oracles at various points?”
Birfer Wars, Part II. May the farce be with you. 😉
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Sanctions? I don’t see a viable chance for sanctions. He’s not a lawyer, so he’s not even expected to know better. (And as you can see, even a lawyer like Orly gets away with such nonsense without sanctions).
Other recourse? None that I can think of, at least not in court. Of course, people who are defamed can try to repair their injured reputations by publishing something in the blogosphere etc.
I don’t know exactly how the comments work at Daily Kos, but if a couple of people click the ‘hide’ option on a comment, I believe it disappears from the comment stream of that diary but it’s still available in the person’s profile. Gillar’s comment about the copy machine that isn’t visible any more from the diary page can be found here: http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1250756/51721875
Yeah, people are a bit clueless about this… Gillar was easily led to believe that there was a foundation.
Poor souls, cannot even do proper research.
This isn’t some damn game, but if it were, I guess it’s a house rules variant of Battleship.
Isn’t it obvious? It’s Roxy!
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If any other lawyer has seen something like this, I’d like to know their opinion.
IMO, so long as John/Jane Doe are not named as defendants,they will not receive notification of anything. If John/Jane become named parties in the case, they will be notified via service of summons. However, that’s not going to happen because Vogt’s filing is not seeking to make them parties. Indeed, Vogt has argued that John/Jane should not be notified of anything, lest they flee or destroy the evidence of their crimes before they can be indicted and arrested.
Laughing one’s ass off is not the usual response to being dragged into court, no matter how ludicrous the allegations. Especially, when you can’t even sue the bastard for defamation.
I don’t see his comment – did they delete it?
That’s too bad.
He was banned after 2 posts. I just figured out how this works. When a user is banned, his comments on any diary pages are only visible to “trusted” people who meet some ‘mojo’ criteria based on number of comments, number of ‘likes’, number of diaries published, etc. But, banned or not, his comments are still visible to everyone from his profile page. http://www.dailykos.com/user/Mark%20Edward%20Gillar/comments
I think Kossacks have a low tolerance for conspiracy theorists. As I recall, there used to be quite a bit of conflict there over truthers who many people felt were disruptive.
I think the entire point of this escapade is to simply suggest progress being made and to draw things out longer for more WND viewers, more books sold, donations and the like.
I’m guessing they’re hoping somehow it gets accepted for review by a legitimate grand jury.
This would be a huge talking point for them.
It would suggest real legal momentum and validity for their beliefs.
But again it’s just to impress certain people for monetary gain.
Enticing “any day now” fools that there’s finally an important pending legal action.
Another sprinkling of imaginary legal beliefs and jargon.
Another denial in the future.
And when it’s denied?
Then it’s added to a larger body of “evidence” showing just how the evil the Kenyan usurper really is.
In other words, just more bs to keep the dollars coming in.
Chez nous, this lunatic would be sent home expeditively with a 5000 euros fine (my guesstimate). (He could appeal the fine of course, but I doubt he’d win.)
I can see the comments listed, but I can’t view them. The URL’s return an error.
It’s not that difficult to set up “scan to email.” If you can manually set up an email client (know hosts and masks SMTP server names and ports), you can set up a Xerox. I’ve done it myself. Scan to file is a little trickier because you have to configure an ftp server somewhere to received the file. I would expect Papit could do something like that.
Doesn’t appear to be an above-board company endeavor; no results for Vogt at WND that refer to seeking criminal charges re PDF Madness since the first go ’round in the wake of the publication of that seminal fail, WTBC? back in mid 2011. No results for Doug Vogt at all at WND in 2013, period. Andreas Vogt, yes, Karl Vogt, yes, Doug … persona non grata.
Meanwhile, Corsi is given new headlines re: his newest project … revealing who really killed JFK (I crap ye not) : Corsi Challenged O’Reilly to JFK Debate. (Surprise, he doesn’t say it was Obama (or Obama’s daddy)).
Also, Allen West warns of race war, more assurances of ongoing “black mob violence”, Adelson says nuke Iran, you too can make your own AR-15 at home, and the UN is trying to bring the NSA to heel. I like the last one; which way to play it: 1) tap into “ebel gubbamint be watchin’ ewe” libertarian paranoia, or 2) whip up nationalist resentment of the One World Gubbamint telling US what to do? …. Both! (of course)
But, no Vogt. If Corsi / WND is involved, it’s on the down-low.
Yet they seem to have problems figuring out how to get any of their copiers to work it would seem, and are loudly discounting the workstation so it leads me to wonder.
Good job, Dr. C., on providing informative background information to the comment stream at Daily Kos.
I started looking at Vogt’s affidavit, and something early on struck me. He started quoting Hawaiian law (paragraphs 12-14), but they were differently formatted. So I decided to look them up, to see what else the law said. The first set is the current law, but the rest I couldn’t find the exact wording/numbering as the current law, so it was obviously changed since it was first written. I decided to see if I could find it. My first hit got me the apparent source.
http://gen.doh.hawaii.gov/sites/har/AdmRules1/8%208A%20B%20VR%20Admin%20Rules.pdf
I notice that this is a series of laws enacted starting in 1962, after Obama was born. The formatting, wording, and numbering matches what Vogt quoted. Not only does this not support Vogt due to timing, it also says nothing about when the state assigns the filing number. Note that the laws all talk about when it has to be filed with the local registrar, but the local registrar has to forward it to the state (in 1962, weekly, except outlying islands – and the language there suggests that the state does something with the registrations on a monthly basis. Perhaps that explains the ellipses in Vogt’s quote…). There is nothing in the laws stating when the state has to assign it a filing number.
However, I noticed something else as I was reading this source. Something NBC and Reality Check would probably notice as well…
During the March 1, 2012 press conference, Corporal Z of the CCCP spoke about persons of interest. Yes, we know “Roxy” was the computer that created the multi-layered PDF document. But, the CCCP, according to the press conference, had certain people in mind as possible suspects. My guess is that Vogt may have focused on the same suspects as the CCCP. If Vogt has brought this action naming the CCCP suspects under seal, it could be speculated that there has been a separation of sorts between Vogt and the CCCP. Could it be that Vogt really does know the names of the CCCP suspects and has become impatient with Private Z and is going forward on his own?
Apparently before the comment was deleted, Mark Gillar said “The 7655 was undoubtedly used to create a number of anomalies in hopes that all anomalies in the pdf, including the ones caused by the forgery itself, would incorrectly be attributed to the machine. It’s not going to work.”
Sounds to me like they duplicated NBC’s, Kevin’s and RC’s work and yes it produces the layers. But that was just a clever ploy by the forgers to hide the anomalies that they created.
I guess when it got time to release the PDF the White House forger said “Bring me a scanner that will create layers and identical pixel elements and halos so I can hide the traces of my work because there is no other way to do that.”
And it has 8-bit layers and 1-bit layers. The 1-bit layers are filtered with JBIG2Decode.
You just found a big dot in the conspiracy, it won’t be long before Zullo/Gallups/Gillar connects it to RC, NBC, you and the FogBow. LOL
That’s an amazing thought process, and so a good example of how frustrating it can be to try to reason with a conspiracy theorist.
If the forgers were so devious as to try to hide their tracks, why wouldn’t they have simply scanned the lfbc to a “flat” image file like a .jpg instead of a .pdf? There would be no layers, no scanner/forgery artifacts to deal with, etc (not that it would stop the birthers, of course.) Why would these diabolical co-conspirators be so smart, yet overlook such a simple thing?
The whole theory on the “forgery” has always been laughably stupid and gets more convoluted by the day. No forgery would ever create a pdf document by piecing together parts of different documents. I am always amazed at how birthers think the forger was so sophisticated and yet so incomptent at the same time.
Exactly. IIRC, one of the original birther mimes was that the forger had forgotten to flatten the file and that is why there are layers. Now they are saying that they used Photoshop to create a birth certificate and the Xerox scanning software to create the layers to hide their efforts. So the forger had a working knowledge of Photoshop and an understanding of Mixed Raster Content compression and its effects on a PDF but were not smart enough to just flatten the file.
And they say that with an absolutely straight face.
And if I am reading this- he is accusing the Hawaiian Department of Health of being in on this.
But if they were in on this, they wouldn’t have had to forge anything- they could have made a nifty original on paper that was false- but not forged.
If Hawaii was involved, all of this nonsense about pfd’s and layers etc becomes even more laughable.
I’ve always thought that the LFBC forgery arguments are the stupidest birther conspiracy theories around. Between none of the available evidence supporting the theory, the absence of any plausible motive for the forgery, and the support of the documents by the Hawai’ian Department of Health, someone must be exceptionally dense to believe that this path is a plausible way to establish President Obama’s illegitimacy, let alone a legitimate one.
Never read stories about people dealing with the devil? He is so smart, but they always outsmart him somehow, because he always overlooks something.
Maybe that is why you said “diabolical” ….
To listen to Doug Vogt, the Hawaii Department of Health is fully engaged in the conspiracy, so their verifications are insignificant. Like a true conspiracy theorist, Vogt has expanded the conspiracy to such an extent that he can deny any evidence to the contrary.
But no embedded comment in the jpeg, and quantization tables do not match.
The law is found here:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Hi-Rev-Laws-Chapter-57.pdf
and it has nothing about certificate numbering. Vogt is pretty bad about saying things are in laws that are not there.
Federal guidance (and this is not “law”) recommends consecutive numbering. Vogt and other birthers (probably as the result of bias) misread statements about consecutive numbering. Consecutive numbers just mean numbers with no gaps. It doesn’t imply that certificates must be numbered in the same order as births occurred, just the numbers be in the order in which the certificates are numbered. That is, the first certificate numbered gets “1” and the second one numbered gets “2”. In Hawaii, it appears that the records were sorted by last name in monthly batches and then numbered.
Let’s say that an office serves people by number. You take a number and wait until your number is called to be served. The numbers are assigned consecutively as people take a number, but they cannot be assured that people take the numbers in the order in which they arrive. Birth certificates do not arrive in the order in which the children are born. Doctors take differing amounts of time to sign them. In Hawaii, births on the outlying islands are delayed a bit.
Because I have worked on certificate numbering systems in vital records software, I know that there is some variation on how it is done. The last two projects I worked on before retiring involved data conversions that renumbered birth certificates due to historical problems in the assignments (the world is messy). In some jurisdictions certificates are numbered as received. In others they are numbered as they are registered (meaning that all the required data fields are present and within allowed ranges). Some are numbered in batches. Often there are local file numbers and state file numbers assigned at different times. Doug Vogt basically knows nothing about certificate numbering, making him what birthers call “an expert.”
It’s much easier to make your case that way.
Speaking of cases….mental cases……they’ve taken up Mr. Vogt’s filing at The Birther Report and they’re going absolutely nuts.
Bill Bryan is the target of the usual vile stuff.
FALCON says “….. the Obama charade is unraveling at event horizon speed.” Something is unraveling and it’s right there on your screen.
Given that event horizons move incredibly slowly (and only when mass is added to the black hole), this statement is a hell of a lot more accurate than most of what FALCON writes…
Mr. Vogt is now on the scene explaining what his “filing is all about”:
Douglas Vogt 1 hour ago
You and others do not understand what my filling is all about. It is not a lawsuit. You have to read the two laws under which I filled this evidence, Misprision of Felony and Treason, and why I had to do it. The filling is between myself and the Federal Court and does not involve charging or suing anyone else. That is the job of a Federal Grand Jury which is one of the things I am asking the court to do. You should also read the Memorandum of Law that was also filled. It will explain more. Regarding your comment on defamation lawsuits, if you knew anything about criminal law, a person or witness is exempt from libel or slander laws when they are reporting a crime. You naturally have to mention names. Paul Irey and I have done 2+ years of research on this and we do have 20 points of forgery. We have the principals in this forgery dead to rights and we have the evidence. Read it and weep.
In another message Vogt says:
Douglas Vogt 1 hour ago
After a Federal Grand Jury has enough evidence they would prepare indictments to all the principals and accessories after the fact. The Federal Judge(s) would prepare arrest warrants and the US Marshals office would serve them. That is how it is done in all cases.
(Dream on Mr. Vogt!)
Then FALCON does a 180 from obnoxious to obsequious:
FALCON★ 136p 58 minutes ago
Doug – is the forger a poster here? I say it’s possible. And do you expect there will be an indictment against that person?
Also, you mention media person(s) – can you divulge those name(s)?
Lastly, if there is no indictment – will you release the names?
I think FALCON is excited and it’s not pretty.
Can we get a link?
Curious George: “Could it be that Vogt really does know the names of the CCCP suspects and has become impatient with Private Z and is going forward on his own?”
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the people mentioned under seal in Vogt’s filing turned out to be………..respected Tea Party advocates? That would be hilarious and earth shattering to the Birfer faithful to say the least. How would they spin that to benefit their insanity?
Sorry. Forgot to include it: http://www.birtherreport.com/2013/10/document-expert-identifies-obama-forger.html
Be sure to open up all the replies.
I have made a few updates to the article to make it clearer that whatever Vogt did, it is not a lawsuit. There are no defendants. I also changed some wording to indicate that the court has not ordered anything sealed yet.
There was no reason to file the thing with the Court. He could just have sent it in a registered letter to a judge, but that wouldn’t generate any publicity.
It’s not generating much publicity now except for ridicule.
Does Vogt have a website? Or does he look for donations? Because I get the impression he is the real deal and not just grifting for money like others we could name.
The brave revolutionaries at ORYR seem to have eliminated the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down voting buttons.
When he figures it out, don’t expect him to tell the unwashed masses.
Birthers love to make a big deal about how if “X” wasn’t true, surely so-and-so would sue for defamation/libel.
They then claim that so-and-so not suing validates whatever outrageous claim they need to believe in the moment.
I rather suspect the “sealed” suspects are pseudonymous (as in “the owner of the Obot website XYZ”).
The description of “Jane Doe #1” suggests to me he might have bought into the Linda Adams or Nancy Owens Barger (sp?) claims.
Apart from that, it’s a lot of the “impossible typewriter” frittata that was such a big fail on WND years ago. Again he’s drawing misleading lines (his “baseline” in Fig. 45, attachment, is too low, it should be under the “A…t” line and the other letters have ink bleeding below the baseline) and somehow says that a typewriter must have perfect alignments (otherwise it’s a forgery) when of course a perfect alignment would’ve been “proof it’s computer-generated”.
From my honorary degree in remote psychology, I can also state that making up contrived words (such as “Constitutional-eligibility” and “in-every-sense-of-the-word”) is typical for deranged cranks.
On problem (of many) with Vogt’s analysis (actually Irey’s) is that they take the letters in the AP JPG blow them up many times then sharpen the fuzzy image to monochrome and pretend that is what the original letter would look like if magnified many times The guy at Raised on Hoecakes blog called Irey out on this over a year ago. Irey got all huffy about it on the comments but never defended it.
This is a classic mistake of adding information where it did not exist before.
Owens’ story would be inconsistent with Vogt’s claim that the Hawaii Department of Health was involved. Plus there would be no reason to seal such an accusation, since their stories are actively being pushed on the Internet. It would seem to me that someone like Dr. Chiyome Fukino or Janice Okubo is a more likely candidate for Vogt’s misguided fantasies.
I agree that he’s the real deal, but that doesn’t make him any less an evangelist for his cause. The only web site I know for him is http://www.vectorpub.com/ which was purged of anti-Obama material some time ago, I presume to keep one brand of nuttery from tarnishing the other.
Dr Fukino is named among the named “defendants” so that would rule her out, I guess. “Disseminated other COLB’s” does not sound like something done by someone in the Hawaiian DOH, either (I don’t think anyone ever claimed the DOH even produced a single COLB, all birthers seem to agree all of Obama’s BC’s are forgeries that never originated from Hawaii in the first place).
There’s just two reasons IMO why he would seal those two names – either to be protected from defamation suits or because they are unspecific (as in “Jane Doe #2 is: the person who uploaded the WH PDF to the internet”).
A real name would fall under #1, even if it’s known in the birther world.
If I knew Vogt was an intelligent person, I would suppose the latter – you only name somebody “John/Jane Doe” whose real name you don’t know, not to redact a name you would identify in a sealed additional filing (I think you’d call someone like this “Person of interest #1” or similar).
However given birther quirks, I wouldn’t rule out he says “Jane Doe #1” in one paper and mention a real name in another.
Not anymore, Doc! Go to his homepage, scroll to the bottom, to find his new subject ares, “Political Subjects” (no links to it from his sidebar).
Only link there is to his BC forgery screed:
http://www.vectorpub.com/Obamas_Certificate_Forgery.html
He doesn’t ask for donations … as far as I know, he doesn’t even actively promote his website.
I see that. It also suggests that a book is forthcoming: “If you want to be notified of the publication of the new book just send us an e-mail with your name and address and e-mail and we will notify you by e-mail.” It also appears that the anti-Obama material on his company web site, archiveindex.com is gone (at least Google doesn’t find any there).
Adding, subtracting, altering all to hell. These guys simply have no appreciation for the basic nature of pixelated imagery, and certainly no understanding of the difference between digital representations of real-world objects and digitally created images.
It’s like they assume the LFBC is only the latter 😉
Here’s a gem I missed the first time, at the bottom of his home page:
“12040 Days, 15 Hours, 24 Minutes, 44 Seconds until the Sun novas, and Earth’s next ice age!”
It’s a countdown clock. Sun to blow 5Bn yrs early, and nova will cause an ice age???
Has no direct relation to birfin’, but comedy gold if used to illuminate his other claims.
When Vogt put his first report out, the birther craze was at its peak. Arguing its merits would get nowhere with the wingers who had lapped it up, but shining a light on vectorpub.com always got them running for the hills.
“Ad hominem!”, the diehards would say. Maybe. As Christ said: “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”
At least he picked a date that gives him 33 years before he will be proven wrong… which doesn’t prevent him from looking stupid since if the Sun goes nova we’ll all be burned to a crisp so we wont be around for an ice age.
This isn’t anything new to people who have been observing the birthers, but Mr. Vogt is another example that if you are a birther, odds are that you are also a proponent of crank science and a believer in all manner of right-wing Christian conspiracy theories.
Christoper Hitchens suggested that religion poisons everything. I would change that to read that religion is poisoned by people like the birthers.
The Magic M
“Disseminated other COLB’s” does not sound like something done by someone in the Hawaiian DOH, either….”
Didn’t Jerome Corsi write articles on WND about various COLBs that he had received?
I have tried to help birthers understand this by asking them if they consider a scanned image of themselves viewed on a computer or smartphone screen to be the same as their flesh and blood personage. I usually get no response.
You’re right, I was thinking of “Obama COLB’s” when I read that line (and the birther claim that “several versions” of the COLB/LFBC exist). My bad.
—
Thank you!
You’re good, Magic M. The real question is, who supplied Jerome Corsi with the various COLBs and were they legit?
There is also the other side of this—if there isn’t a physical original, why did Hawai’i say there was and create the verification letter that went with the LFBC, what was the origin of the other image and photographs (which are higher resolution than the “electronically created pdf” so could not have been produced from that), etc.
One of many things I’ve noted: Vogt claims that the white background LFCOLB was the first on the Whitehouse site, to be replaced by the green background LFCOLB several hours later.
Adrien Nash is pushing his theory that the DOH fabricated the COLB in the ORYR
discussionranting section under the Vogt posting.And various birthers have claimed Hawaii is part of the forging from time to time. Though I can’t recall any of them (other than Nash) getting very specific about how.
When they do, it’s usually a blanket statement along the lines of “Hawaii is in on it!”
* * * FLASH * * *
BWAHAHAHA! Love how they set up that punchline so well 😀
I just love one of the birther comments that argues that “lib tards” should be kept off the grand jury — because public grand juries are known to be lynch mobs.
“and the problem with public grand jury is well known as being lynch mobs
if not supervised properly to ensure a proper seating of potential jurors that are piers, knowledgeable, and capable
of discerning the facts from the frauds.
in other words no lib tards need to attend.”
Wow. That goes beyond the pot calling the kettle black.
Well, if they emoanel a jury of piers, they’ll just wind up complaining about the lack of progress, because the only thing piers know how to do is hold things up.
In that case, a pier would be the appropriate place to secure the S.S. Birfer before it springs anymore leaks. But then again, leeks would be supported by Birfer peers who enjoy a fine Cobb salad. 😉
I was at work and thus in a hurry. The punchline is that Rondeau over at PFail writes that a “legal adviser” was involved in the filing of Vogt’s new flop. Hmmm, I thought the impression was that Vogt was playing his own barrister again … ?
And then, the joke … the “legal adviser” iiiiiiis ….. Sibley!
*thud*
The funny thing about all of this nonsense is the Birfers couldn’t have picked a more Obama friendly area to attempt to get a grand jury to look at their “evydunce.” These guys never cease to amaze me. I also noticed in the comments section at ORYR that something else within a few weeks is in the works with Captain Z and his comedy kings. Stay tuned for more exciting developments. Yaawwn.
I think I’ve figured out what’s behind this maneuver.
Vogt is the mole.
Consider his past actions:
1. As a scanner salesman, he should know that there’s competition out there that scans to multi-layered PDFs. Yet he steered the CCP away from Xerox, and caused them to waste hundreds of hours testing random combinations of scanners and software trying to figure out what could have created the file. And to end up with a ridiculous theory that made them look incompetent.
2. He “accidentally” leaked the fact that they were working with a Xerox, in a way that again discredited the CCP. And, again, they wound up looking like fools.
3. Now he’s broadcasting a warning that wil ensure that any evidunce gets destroyed before the authorities can act. And, yet again, makes the CCP look stupid by unnecessarily including a bunch of nonsense in his “filling”.
Thus, the only logical conclusion is that he’s a spy and a saboteur, secretly working for our side.
Let’s just hope that he can escape before the birthers lynch him.
Yup, the AnyDayNow is still strong within them. It was only a few months ago that they said the big bang would happen in just a few months…
Equally funny is the belief among the Twitter birthers that the AL SC decision where Roy Moore will personally frog-march Obama into Leavenworth is “due this Friday”, every Friday.
Anyone know who Randy Daniels is? Frank has been going back and forth with Vogt trying to get him to back up his claim #6. Each reply is subsequently more paranoid than the last.
http://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=10288&start=150
I think it is this Randy Daniels.
http://oldlineelephant.blogspot.com/2009/02/suggestions-to-draft-randy-daniels.html
Don’t ask me why.
Spouse of Susan? (Wouldn’t that be a hoot? The Birtherverse is an ever-shrinking one)
Any day now is right. Do these people understand how ridiculous they look?
Kossacks love conspiracy theorists, as long as they like the theory. I gave up on dkos a few years ago, after a group of Kossacks conspired to get me banned via malicious down-rating of my posts when I debunked a couple of their favorites. They have a smaller percentage of loons than the birthers, but the ones they have are about as bad (except that they usually don’t advocate shooting people they don’t like).
Frank Arduini raised a very important point in an email from him to Mr. Vogt, published over at the Fogbow.:
He makes a strong case that Vogt intentionally lied in his Affidavit. Perjury is a felony. Is Arduini obligated to report this to the judge to avoid a charge of Misprision of Felony?
There’s a very good thread at the Fogbow on this filing:
http://www.thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=10288
How exactly do you name a forger , without a forgery?
Logic has no place in the birther narrative.