Janice Okubo had stated that she believed the Obama birth certificate was accurate on June 13 and June 27 according to Politifact, a website of the St. Petersburg Times. On June 13, Janice Okubo stated that the Certificate of Live Birth that Politifact sent her was real:
"'It's a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,' spokesman Janice Okubo said June 13, 2008, after we e-mailed her our copy."
Then, on June 27 Politifact repeated this narrative.
It is not clear that Ms. Okubo's statements conflict with Pamela Geller's claim that the certificate is a forgery. There is a big question and three small questions. The big question is why is there no administrative body handling this instead of a St. Petersburg journalist?
One small question is whether the copy that the Obama campaign sent to Poltifact has the same problems that the copy on the Obama website has. Ms. Okubo does not state that she sent the birth certificate to Mr. Obama, which was the impression I had initially from her statement to the Hawaii newspaper.
Hence, the second small question is whether Dan Nakaso of the Hawaii newspaper exaggerated the extent of her verification.
The third small question is that I wonder if the St. Petersburg newspaper would be willing to permit a forensics expert to review their copy.
I have written the following to Amy Hollyfield of Politifact:
I appreciate your work on the Obama birth certificate. After your article's publication, questions about it's being a forgery were raised at http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/07/atlas-exclusive.html. The key problem for me with respect to this issue is why the United States administrates an elections system without requiring identification and background information as part of the public record, to include not only birth certificates but also fingerprinting, criminal record, marriage certificate, etc. We live in an age of identity theft, yet there is no administration of verification of candidates' credentials. I have inquired with the Federal Elections Commission, my state's (and other states') board of elections, my state's secretary of state, the IRS (which administrates campaign funding) and my Congressman. We have a sorely mismanaged election system that could use professionalization of its administration, as in requiring birth certificates and the like from all candidates. Is anyone sure that of all the state legislatures, Congressmen, Senators and local elected officials that there is not one or even a few who have relied on stolen identities?
To this end, I have developed a petition to the FEC at
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Federal-Elections-Commssion/
http://mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com/2008/08/petition-to-request-federal-elections.html
Several of the 5,200 people who have signed it have wondered why candidates run without ID verification while someone like you is the one to attempt to verify Mr. Obama's birth certificate.
I would like to make an inquiry. Since you have a hard copy of the purported certificate, would you make it available to a forensics expert to verify? Ms. Okubo did not confirm that she actually sent you the certificate. Rather, she confirmed that it looked like a real certificate. Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs states that a forensics expert determined that the certificate posted on the website is a forgery. Would your newspaper be willing to allow or commission an independent forensics expert to further document your story?
Best wishes,
Mitchell Langbert
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16 comments:
While you're waiting for a reply from Amy Hollyfield, I can throw some more light on the subject.
The "forensics expert" "Techdude" who supposedly discovered that the Obama birth certificate was a forgery (or fabrication) is an impersonator of a real forensics expert and a fraud. He produced no evidence of any forgery at all. He merely presented a series of ridiculous claims in ridiculous language, which even included "a dead rabbit on his porch" and then ran away when his last "report" was submitted. It was his "Final-final-final report" but there was to be a "Final-final-final-final report" which was to detail how others would be able to see what HE saw, but it never came.
Techdude offered "a free trip to Vegas" to anyone who could find the remnants of another name in Obama's certificate, and someone stepped forward claiming to have found the right name - but he found it in the WRONG place. He was nevertheless classed as the winner and will be donating the prizemoney, estimated to be about $1000 to Hillary's fund.
It's all quite mad - but read on - there's more madness below.
The second "analyst" (Polarik) who claims he found the certificate was a forgery has no credibility at all because his work is based on comparing the Obama COLB with others from different years which have entirely different borders AND it was the borders where he found his imagined "flaws". This analyst (actually a Photoshop dabbler) also wanted to claim some sort of copyright on the abbreviation "COLB" for Certification Of Live Birth, even though it is absurd and not possible anyway.
So the "forgery" claims are all total nonsense.
Ray
Did you examine Techdude in person? Are you a forensics expert? To be fair, an expert should answer these allegations after a direct examination. Calling him names is not helpful. You could say the same thing about Barack Obama's claim that he is for "change". The kind of change he is for--the"final-final-final" version of the facts in his book, saying that his speech would be outside to be open to all, then requiring that his followers work for tickets,the dead rabbit on the porch kind of "open for all" and "change", etc.
Ray, Do you actually THINK it is not possible to forge such a document in this day and age? I'd like to know if the printer at Hawaii's BVS prints the same "black dot" on every COLB that comes off it. The black dot does appear on BO's, the blank template, and Haye's COLBs. Did anyone notice it on Michele's? Given a "5 year" break down pattern, I wouldn't expect to see it on Patricia's unless Hawaii can tell us when they purchased and began printing on the current equipment. Maybe it SHOULD also be on Patricia's. Simple fact, there are now just too many questions, and by not addressing them promptly and, what I would consider to be, "intelligently", the proof will now have to be met at a MUCH higher standard! And by someone "trustworthy", because the people involved so far "APPEAR" to have betrayed the trust.
Mitchell Langbert said...
Did you examine Techdude in person? Are you a forensics expert? To be fair, an expert should answer these allegations after a direct examination. Calling him names is not helpful.
I wasn't calling Techdude names. I was making allegations of fraud and false pretenses.
Mairi said...
Ray, Do you actually THINK it is not possible to forge such a document in this day and age?
Yes, because tell-tale signs would still be easily detectable. The most obvious signs are those which would be visible when text is covered over with the background yellow and green pattern.
You simply cannot take slabs of different coloured "background" pixels and copy/paste them to other areas of a digital COLB to mask text without upsetting the natural (uneven) 'color flow' which is inherent in all images of that type. Printing ink for a background pattern is never placed dead accurately onto paper, so if parts of the image are moved the colour variation is visible. It looks identical to the human eye, because it can only discern a few hundred shades, but graphics programs like Photoshop can see thousands or millions (depending on what is being measured).
Even if a forger did a remarkably good job in handling the above issues, there's still other issues like the appearance of the new forged text. They certainly couldn't just type it in, because it would look like (what it is) - typed computer text, but the Obama text is not typed, it's:
(a) Typed
(b) Printed (on yellow & green)
(c) Scanned
I'd like to know if the printer at Hawaii's BVS prints the same "black dot" on every COLB that comes off it. The black dot does appear on BO's, the blank template, and Haye's COLBs. Did anyone notice it on Michele's?
The black dot you are referring to is common to those digital images because they were all made from Obama's original scan, so the printer doesn't come into the question of how they got there.
Given a "5 year" break down pattern, I wouldn't expect to see it on Patricia's unless Hawaii can tell us when they purchased and began printing on the current equipment. Maybe it SHOULD also be on Patricia's.
If Hawaii Health had wanted to build-in extra security for certificates issued in any given time-frame, they could simply have made black dots in the master image by altering a few pixels in Photoshop.
They could then be easily seen with a high powered magnifying glass or low powered microscope - as used in the printing trades. This is how bank notes have always been marked at various intervals. In the old days they would simply nick one of the engraved blocks with a sharp scriber.
Simple fact, there are now just too many questions, and by not addressing them promptly and, what I would consider to be, "intelligently", the proof will now have to be met at a MUCH higher standard! And by someone "trustworthy", because the people involved so far "APPEAR" to have betrayed the trust.
If there are too many questions that have remained unanswered for some people, why not ask them and knock some of them over?
I suppose the bottom line is, that if a forger was capable of doing an excellent job they wouldn't have been fooling around with JPEG images in the first place because of all the tell-tale signs (JPG artifacts) that are left behind by JPG compression - which places coloured checkerboard rectangles on the perimeter of text. An expert forger would have used the original scanned TIFF images which doesn't leave any of that tell-tale rubbish at the scene of the crime.
Ray
Ray said,
"You simply cannot take slabs of different coloured "background" pixels and copy/paste them to other areas of a digital COLB to mask text without upsetting the natural (uneven) 'color flow' which is inherent in all images of that type. Printing ink for a background pattern is never placed dead accurately onto paper, so if parts of the image are moved the colour variation is visible. It looks identical to the human eye, because it can only discern a few hundred shades, but graphics programs like Photoshop can see thousands or millions (depending on what is being measured)."
http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/updated-analysis-with-new-certificate-of-live-birth/
Polarik addresses just the issue you refer to at the enclosed link. There is no background match on BO's lettering, or on the shading of the letters as they appear on an original. It is not discernible to the naked eye, but he does in fact show what can be seen when these issues are addressed in a proper "visual" format. BO's has lost the background and edging of the letters that should be apparent if typed onto an original background. Michele's, has all the background and letter edging intact. Hers is known to be an original.
Ray said,
"If there are too many questions that have remained unanswered for some people, why not ask them and knock some of them over?"
Have you noticed Mitchell HAS been asking the questions? No one seems to wish to give an answer. Hmmmmm......I wonder WHY?
He has asked many of the right people, and still no response. He keeps asking, they keep refusing. Any ideas on just who MIGHT give the answers we are looking for?
It seems a simple request, one the BO camp should be easily able to settle, yet they refuse. As long as the refusals continue, the questions, "Why?" will continue.
Mairi said...
http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/updated-analysis-with-new-certificate-of-live-birth/
Polarik addresses just the issue you refer to at the enclosed link. There is no background match on BO's lettering, or on the shading of the letters as they appear on an original. It is not discernible to the naked eye, but he does in fact show what can be seen when these issues are addressed in a proper "visual" format. BO's has lost the background and edging of the letters that should be apparent if typed onto an original background.
A few of us have been contradicting that idea all along. The very light coloured JPG artifacts are the result of more than average "digital exposure" combined with the heavy compression which dropped 23MB out of the 24MB scan. That extra exposure created white pixels which then "grew" when the file was compressed.
We only have to glance at the Michele COLB to see how much greener it is all over. The lack of very light coloured pixels in it, made it impossible for it to have a lot of white near the letters like the Obama COLB because JPG compression creates artificial pixels (artifacts) to to make a blend from the black text to the lightest colour.
So the Obama artificial blend went from Black to White and the Michele blend went from Black to Green.
Polarik claimed that new text had been typed in. If that had occurred, there would have been hardly ANY white pixels near the text.
Ray
Mairi said...
Have you noticed Mitchell HAS been asking the questions? No one seems to wish to give an answer. Hmmmmm......I wonder WHY?
The don't care about microscopic minorities who cannot join the dots. Even ordinary Americans are not interested because only about 1 in 30,000,000 have got involved in the technical details of the image debate - and those who have skills with Photoshop either oppose Techdude and Polarik's forgery claims or they do not agree.
He has asked many of the right people, and still no response. He keeps asking, they keep refusing. Any ideas on just who MIGHT give the answers we are looking for?
Well you cannot get all the answers, but journalists could get the birth date and place by simply asking. Then of course there's one or more authorities that will be able to verify that they have sighted a valid COLB.
Ray
Ray,
Mitchell and MANY others have been requesting that the MSM investigate and get the real answers. I think they may be slowing deciding to "take a drink". I would like to see you PROVE the document at BO's site IS his real COLB! For all the argument to just blindly accept it, despite all the evidence which shows it to be very likely a forged document, I have not seen one shred of evidence that proves it is legit! Not one person from the opposition has shown beyond any doubt that the document is REAL. When you do that, I'll back off and call you "Yosemite"! Until then, I will not rest until someone with some legal capability to administer the laws of eligibility, puts the argument to bed!
Ray said,
"A few of us have been contradicting that idea all along. The very light coloured JPG artifacts are the result of more than average "digital exposure" combined with the heavy compression which dropped 23MB out of the 24MB scan. That extra exposure created white pixels which then "grew" when the file was compressed."
BO's site scanned their image, Polarik scanned Michele's. There should not be so great a difference, since both were scanned documents. The backgrounds and letters are not the same. I am not a graphics expert by ANY stretch, but I will tell you this. I have Unix, and GIMP. I wanted the trip to Vegas! My daughter will assure you, that as I played with the image as TechDude claimed, all I could find were two "S's" in the BO COLB. I told my daughter it didn't make any sense. Someone else has claimed to see what might have been the name "Mary". The two "S's" seemed to match with "Hussein" just being moved to a different spot. I gave up. I don't even know HOW I got there, because when "Kassandra" came out, I tried to replicate what I had done to go back and have another try. I don't understand graphics, and I hadn't written down the steps I had taken. I can tell you that I went to a black and white image, and had done "aliasing" or "anti-aliasing" plus some other things I was clicking on randomly to get to where I was, and I DID find the two "S's". With absolutely no graphics experience, I was very surprised, and thought possibly because I had found the "S's" it would in fact support the document being BO's. When I called my 22 year old daughter to see what I had found, she gave me the usual, "Your crazy!". She believed the two "S's" might also support the document as really being his.
My own findings, based on being a total "graphics amateur", have only reinforced my belief that the document is a forgery. I would NOT have donated the trip to repay Hillary's campaign debt!
Mairi said...
Ray said,
"A few of us have been contradicting that idea all along. The very light coloured JPG artifacts are the result of more than average "digital exposure" combined with the heavy compression which dropped 23MB out of the 24MB scan. That extra exposure created white pixels which then "grew" when the file was compressed."
BO's site scanned their image, Polarik scanned Michele's. There should not be so great a difference, since both were scanned documents.
There can easily be a marked difference between two scans of a similar or almost identical image because scanners are not the same.
Besides that we have the normal, minor adjustments, such as brightness or contrast, that are made by each operator to get the best looking image. Then we have the calibration of the monitor being used - which can make a scanned image look GREAT on one person's monitor but not so great on someone else's.
The backgrounds and letters are not the same.
Yes, mainly because of the equivalent of different digital exposure.
I am not a graphics expert by ANY stretch, but I will tell you this. I have Unix, and GIMP. I wanted the trip to Vegas!
I haven't used the GIMP graphics program but it should be as good as Photoshop for doing the sort of things we were all doing because the free 'PaintShop Pro' program was ok years ago.
Still, it's got me stumped why you or anyone would think Obama would wreck his whole career by arranging for a fabrication of his birth record, when he had no obligation to do anything.
My daughter will assure you, that as I played with the image as TechDude claimed, all I could find were two "S's" in the BO COLB. I told my daughter it didn't make any sense. Someone else has claimed to see what might have been the name "Mary". The two "S's" seemed to match with "Hussein" just being moved to a different spot. I gave up. I don't even know HOW I got there, because when "Kassandra" came out, I tried to replicate what I had done to go back and have another try. I don't understand graphics, and I hadn't written down the steps I had taken. I can tell you that I went to a black and white image, and had done "aliasing" or "anti-aliasing" plus some other things I was clicking on randomly to get to where I was, and I DID find the two "S's". With absolutely no graphics experience, I was very surprised, and thought possibly because I had found the "S's" it would in fact support the document being BO's. When I called my 22 year old daughter to see what I had found, she gave me the usual, "Your crazy!". She believed the two "S's" might also support the document as really being his.
It wouldn't matter how you got there, as long as you had an image to show for it. If the size was not altered it would be easy to see exactly which pixels looked suspicious (in a REAL fabrication).
My own findings, based on being a total "graphics amateur", have only reinforced my belief that the document is a forgery. I would NOT have donated the trip to repay Hillary's campaign debt!
It couldn't be a forgery if it has nothing abnormal about it. A forgery would have flaws where the background was used to cover up the old text.
A forgery (done only in a graphics program) would also contain text that didn't look right because if the new text was typed directly on top of covered-up text it would LOOK like computer text instead of scanned text on a green background.
A forger could of course laser print the new text onto a green background by doing it on the unused parts of the real COLB and then scanning it, but they would also have to do it for all the standing text as well to avoid creating obvious differences AND position it all extremely accurately, but they would still end up with a whole stack of tell-tale signs where the covering-up took place, and as you may know, one of the best forensic experts in the field found nothing like that - nor did anyone else.
If a forger had gone to all that effort they wouldn't have gone and used a wrong border (as Polarik and Techdude allege) AND made it out-of-square to match the other Hawaii COLB's which are also crooked. No, if someone was fabricating a 2007 COLB they would have used a real 2007 COLB with the correct border with the wide cross-hatching and grey background. To do otherwise would be insane, but Polarik and Techdude tried to get people believe that their phantom forgers were indeed THAT insane.
Perhaps they were operating under the old idea that if you tell a lie that's big enough, people will believe it.
Ray
Ray said:
"If a forger had gone to all that effort they wouldn't have gone and used a wrong border (as Polarik and Techdude allege) AND made it out-of-square to match the other Hawaii COLB's which are also crooked. No, if someone was fabricating a 2007 COLB they would have used a real 2007 COLB with the correct border with the wide cross-hatching and grey background."
I did not save the image I had been working on when I found the two "S's". But with the redacted certificate number, YOU cannot say it is real. With what I had done finding the matching letters, I am certain it is a fake. Janice Okubo said the borders could be different, so I am not even worried about the borders. I found two "S's", and thought they would prove it to say "Hussein" in a different location.
I am waiting for you to PROVE it is not a fake, so I may call you "Yosemite"!
Ray said:
"Still, it's got me stumped why you or anyone would think Obama would wreck his whole career by arranging for a fabrication of his birth record, when he had no obligation to do anything."
In my youngest daughter's favorite tone of voice, "Are you kidding me?" This man has told SO many whoppers, what's a COLB he thinks no one will ever get to the facts on?
Why would he LIE about his work with McCain on finance reform? Why lie about his stand on abortion? Why lie about his work in Chicago with T Rezko? Have you checked out Parc Lawn lately? Why lie about his adopted name? About his father being a goat herder? Why......ad infinitum? The man wouldn't know truth if it jumped up and BIT him in the backside. Watch his finger...it's always stuck up in the wind, depending on who he happens to be with at the moment!
Do you really believe this man is not willing to tell ANY lie to get elected? Woo Hoo, Ray, you need to join the real world. We know what he has done, we SEE what he is doing, and the "Prize"? Just being "head honcho" of the WORLD! Look at the people he has thrown to his own personal heap just to crawl over....shall we start that list?
Never underestimate a Yank, Ray. We may seem like "gentle giants" on the outside, but when provoked.......I think you KNOW the rest!
Blogger Mairi said...
Ray said:
"If a forger had gone to all that effort they wouldn't have gone and used a wrong border (as Polarik and Techdude allege) AND made it
out-of-square to match the other Hawaii COLB's which are also crooked. No, if someone was fabricating a 2007 COLB they would have used a real 2007 COLB with the correct border with the wide cross-hatching and grey background."
I did not save the image I had been working on when I found the two "S's".
You couldn't have found two "S's" that were not already a part of Obama's COLB. No one has because they are not there..
But with the redacted certificate number, YOU cannot say it is real.
It's a real facsimile copy of Obama's COLB and you are one of about 100 people on the planet who still refuse to accept the facts.
With what I had done finding the matching letters, I am certain it
is a fake.
It seems that you refuse to believe all the people who have provided assurances that it is not a fake, so nothing I say will help.
Janice Okubo said the borders could be different, so I am not even worried about the borders.
She didn't - she said the image was identical in every respect. So did the journalist. I also have a 2007 Hawaii "Certification of Marriage" with an identical border to Obama's COLB.
I found two "S's", and thought they would prove it to say "Hussein"
in a different location.
That would make no sense.
I am waiting for you to PROVE it is not a fake, so I may call you
"Yosemite"!
Well like I said - nothing I say will make any difference. You probably won't even believe his COLB image is genuine after he shows
his paper COLB to a journalist.
Ray said:
"Still, it's got me stumped why you or anyone would think Obama
would wreck his whole career by arranging for a fabrication of his
birth record, when he had no obligation to do anything."
In my youngest daughter's favorite tone of voice, "Are you kidding me?" This man has told SO many whoppers, what's a COLB he thinks no one will ever get to the facts on?
JAIL TIME FOR FRAUD
[....] Why lie about his adopted name?
He hasn't GOT an adopted name, and never did have one.
About his father being a goat herder?
His father DID herd goats on his own father's property. It may well have been the only really productive thing he did before completing his studies in the U.S.
Regarding statements attributed to Ms. Okubo in the June 27th article by Amy Hollyfield:
Statements 1 thru 3 refer to the image emailed by Politifact. It's unclear as to whether Politifact received a paper copy or an emailed image but, either way, Politifact received it directly from Obama's campaign.
I'm assuming statement #4 refers to the image posted on Obama's web site. However, aside from a difference in size, the image posted at Politifact and the image posted on Obama's site appear to be identical.
1 - "It's a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,"
2 - "Because they scanned the front, you wouldn't see those things," referring to the embossed seal and a signature.
3 - "When we looked at that image you guys sent us, our registrar, he thought he could see pieces of the embossed image through it."
4 - "I don't know that it's possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents."
Statements 2 and 3 are laughable. Statements 1 and 4 are the most telling.
Would anyone care to take a shot at explaining the discrepancies between statements 1 and 4?
The only conclusion I can draw is this:
the image emailed to Ms. Okubo by Politifact and the image posted on Obama's site must be two different images, because Ms. Okubo clearly stated the image sent to her represented a "valid Hawaii state birth certificate."
signpost wrote:
Would anyone care to take a shot at explaining the discrepancies between statements 1 and 4
As far I can recall, the two statements came from two different interviews. The first statement was made to a serious journalist and the second non-committal answer was given to a person who was trying to get Ms.Okubo to say more than she was ever going to.
Ms.Okubo repeatedly made it clear that she was not going to reveal or confirm anyone's specific details, but she was also quite willing to confirm what had been claimed publicly by Obama via his representatives - that he had put his 'birth certificate' on the internet. She was well aware that the bloodhounds were after Obama, and she was damned sure they were not going to go after her as well.
Ray
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