Update 2:
The speculative conclusions in the following article turned out not be correct upon the revelation of more clues from Douglas Vogt. Here are the details.
Before the US District Court in Seattle is a legal action styled In re: Douglas Vogt. In it, Vogt makes a list of birther claims and wants federal judge Robart to convene a grand jury to investigate them. It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere except towards dismissal; however, one of the interesting parts of his Affidavit was a reference to a sealed document which names the alleged forger of Obama’s birth certificate. That person is identified as Jane Doe #2. (Of course, Obama’s birth certificates aren’t forged in the first place and there is no forger.)
I had speculated a week or so ago on Reality Check Radio that Jane Doe #2 was Hawaii Department of Health spokesperson Janice Okubo. I said that because there are four strong arguments why a birther might accuse her:
- She works for the Hawaii Department of Health
- People have heard of her
- There is an unflattering photo of her available
- She says that Obama’s birth certificate “is just like hers.”
What more could you want? Of course that list is ridiculous when it comes to any real proof, and I was largely joking when I made the Jane Doe #2 identification. However, I may have been more likely to be right than I knew.
I tend to view birther claims as episodic: the claim is made, the claim is debunked, and the claim becomes inactive. Birthers do not think that way. The whole corpus of birther claims and rumors accumulate into the birther’s milieu. What I had forgotten is that Janice Okubo had been charged with being part of the “forgery” before.
Early on in the birther movement an Internet character called “Ronald Polarik, PhD” made the rounds with tedious and fallacious arguments that the President’s original short form birth certificate was a fake. The identification of Ron Polarik’s real name somewhat tarnished his mystique, but he continued to publish attacks on anyone and everyone connected with Obama’s birth certificate, including a particularly scurrilous attack video titled “Blue Hawaii.” I the video Dr. Polland (his real name) names three Hawaiian women as criminals: Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of the Hawaii Department of Health, Linda Lingle, Governor, and Janice Okubo, Department of Health Communications Director. Specifically, Polland accuses Okubo of providing the original short-form birth certificate (her own) used to make the allegedly fake Obama certificate. The Free Republic had a thread: “Bombshell: HI Official, Janice Okubo’s BC used to forge Obama’s COLB, Amended Records.”
It is only a small step from claiming Okubo provided her birth certificate to make a forgery, to her making the forger herself. Vogt claims that the same person forged both the short form and the long form certificates.
It is also possible that Vogt named Okubo as Jane Doe #1.
Update:
In a comment [link to Taitz site] at her site, Orly Taitz says that Vogt’s forger is someone Taitz has met, and not Chiyome Fukino. I don’t know that Taitz has met Janice Okubo, but she has met Jill Nagamine, who works for the Hawaii Attorney General’s Office.
Gotta wonder what Birthers like Vogt are gonna do, if it is ever decided by a court of law, that what they’re doing is considered slander. It would be quite amusing to see these clowns sweating profusely from a defendant’s chair, as a laundry list of slander charges are brought up against them.
Doc, you wrote:
“I tend to view birther claims as episodic: the claim is made, the claim is debunked, and the claim becomes inactive. Birthers do not think that way. The whole corpus of birther claims and rumors accumulate into the birther’s milieu.”
That last sentence is simple, Doc, but it profoundly identifies where the Birther “craziness” comes from.
All of us are immersed in a uniquely detailed but generic “human being” milieu accumulated from our own social experiences, including claims and rumors referring to a multitude of subjects, because we are seldom stand-a-lone experts on very many subjects, and we are disinclined to check the veracity of every single piece of information we receive concerning every possible topic. In any circumstance that causes us to honestly assess the truth of some aspect of reality, we are required to guard against the presumption that our “little knowledge” of many types about many different things, is sufficient for us to be sure of what the particular truth we are seeking to arrive at, might be.
So truth-seeking contemplation of a question has to include introspective examination of how one’s own known biases and limited knowledge might be corrupting the process. In other words, we constantly challenge the validity of our ongoing analysis by trying to include everything we know about the problem including the reliability of what we think are the important facts, and always retain some recognition that the most important factor may be something we do not yet know, or some factor which inexpert knowledge does not weigh properly.
True Believing Birthers operate however, entirely from within their milieu, as though it constituted the whole Truth of reality, instead of the Birther Hole of Reality.
From Eric Hoffer’s classic work, The True Believer:
“It is the true believer’s ability to “shut his eyes and stop his ears” to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger nor disheartened by obstacle not baffled by contradictions because he denies their existence. — P.76 ”
And when we add the professional mercenary, Birther-manipulating and practiced purveyors of superstition and political hate to the mix, ala Gallups and Zullo, we find Hoffer’s book anticipated their specialities also:
“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil. — P.86”
Depicting Obama with horns and a long pointy tail, seems like ludicrous, but at least only FIGURATIVE hyperbole to thoughtful and introspective persons of any political persuasion. But to the widely dispersed and under-informed Birther Army foot soldiers, Obama really is The Devil, so poorly disguised that the classic Devil caricature is hardly sufficient to convey his loathsomeness.
As I’ve speculated before, I think it would be fitting and ironic if it turned out that the alleged female forger(s) are in reality connected to the Birther movement. I suspect, if true, it would send shock waves throughout the Birther community. If true, the name(s) will never be released for fear of destroying the movement. Hey, anything is possible in Birtherville.
If I were inclined to believe that Obama’s birth certificate were forged, then Mara Zebest would be the number one female candidate.
Back in the real world, no birther has shown the competence to even begin to create a fake like Obama’s real one. Ron Polland has made a superficial crude fake, but he didn’t begin to replicate the internal features of the authentic White House PDF.
I have my suspicions as well, but won’t go so far as to mention names. But, the more well known the persons are in the Birther movement, the more devastating it will be to the ridiculous Birther debacle.
While birtherism is, at best, an irrational belief system, there are rational and practical considerations that may, for all intents and purpose end the birtherism movement functionally if not practically.
One such consideration is federal and state Statutes of Limitations. We are already decades beyond the five year federal statute of limitations of any conceivable crime connected to Social Security fraud, identity theft or failing to register with the Selective Service System.
Section 3282 of Title 18, United States Code, is the statute of general application. It states that, “(e)xcept as otherwise expressly provided by law,” a prosecution for a non-capital offense shall be instituted within five years after the offense was committed.
Any alleged Hawaii birth certificate related offense, including forgery would fall under Hawaii’s Statute of Limitations which proscribes that prosecution must begin within three years of the commission of the alleged offense or the last overt act committed in the alleged offense.
And for any new birther civil suits: On Feb. 27, 2013, the United State Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision clarifying the statute of limitations applicable to most federal government civil penalty enforcement cases. The Court held that the five-year limitations period under 28 U.S.C. 2462 begins to run when the government’s civil penalty claim accrues, i.e., when the defendant’s conduct that gives rise to the civil penalty claim occurs or is complete. The statute does not allow the government to delay the triggering of the five-year limitations period based on the so-called “discovery rule.”
Since most birther criminal and civil claims extend from 2008 or earlier, tick-tock, birthers, tick-tock. You lose, again!
I’m leaning toward Jill Nagamine being one of Vogt’s Jane Does.
She’s not big in Birther circles. It couldn’t be her.
https://www.google.com/#q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.orlytaitzesq.com%2F+Nagamine&safe=off
https://www.google.com/#q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.birtherreport.com%2F+Nagamine&safe=off
Also: Taitz claims to know who Vogt names as the forger; Taitz claims to have met her:
“I know the identity of the person that Mr. Vogt believes to be the forger, however I do not know for sure if this person is indeed the forger. I met this person and believe that this person is involved together with others, however I do not know the full extent of involvement. I will not be disclosing the name as I was requested not to do so.”
http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/?p=438555
My money’s on Miley Cyrus.
I think that points to Jill Nagamine. Because, well just because.
That says elegantly what I tried to convey over at Birther Report this morning:
“If you ever want to be taken seriously, you have to take yourselves seriously, and that means honest criticism of yourselves. Remove the log from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to criticize others. ”
What if the “conduct” is ongoing? e.g., can the birthers claim that Obama is continuing to “present” the short form BC as genuine, so the limitations clock doesn’t run out until five years after the last time he mentions it?
My assumption may not be far off the mark. It’s surprising who may be knowledgeable in Birther circles about the alleged forger(s) identity.
Nope. Forgery is an act that has a beginning and an end. Any prosecutor may not know when the alleged forgery actually took place, but they know when the first allegation of forgery was made. The clock starts from that date, in the late Spring of 2008.
Tee hee hee! Watch out, Butterfly…do you hear the frogs croaking outside your door?
The what what? Why would they say her BC was used? What conceivable contorted view of what perfectly innocent statement could possibly justify…
…oh. Oh my. I see. So using BirtherLogic™: If she said those exact words, the inescapable conclusion is that Janice Okubo’s birth certificate must say “BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, II” with a birthdate of August 4, 1961.
Polland also in his video showed a birth certificate where he morphs Okubo’s name into Obama. It’s very convincing because he shows it for a long time.
Shouldn’t Taitz be following Vogt’s law? She knows about an alleged crime, has a possible suspect and she keeps silent about who she is? Yep, it’s gotta be someone big in Birther circles that allegedly “forged” the birth certificate. Expose the Birther and “poof” there goes the Birther movement!
Or the other way around (note that “his is just like mine” can be parsed differently than “mine is just like his” in that regard). So the bombshell is Obama was born female! *lol*
So maybe the people claiming that Michelle is actually a transvestite are right?
And that would mean that all those rich honkies Obama was boinking for coke in high school weren’t gay.
Noi wonder Pastor Pee-pee is saying it’s going to be “months” before they release all the info they got from Pope: they have to prepare the public so we don’t have mass hysteria…
These complications (“is a man who has sex with a man in a woman’s body gay or straight?”) are making my head hurt. 😉
That would make for another complicated novel – the Prez really a woman, the First Lady really a man and Earth turns out to be flat after all!
I wonder when he got his adam’s apple transplant… or maybe he’s a cyborg with a mechanical one.