Sometimes I’m a little slow but I get there.
The birther dog and pony show sponsored by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio raised as one of its big points, the Selective Service System registration of Barack Obama, and the obvious fact that the Post Office circular date stamp on the form has only two digits for the year. There are many possible explanations for this, but the Cold Case Posse said that the stamp was faked by taking a real Post Office date stamp from 2008, cutting off the “20” and turning the “08” upside down to make the “80” that is seen on the form. Of all the possible explanations, they picked one which is utterly impossible. Follow along.
Here is the date stamp from the Obama registration form (rotated for easy viewing):
Look closely at the bottom of the date stamp. It shows “USPO” (for United States Post Office). The USPO became the United States Postal Service (USPS) in 1970. The Cold Case Posse’s theory that a “2008” USPO hand stamp was altered to make the image above is impossible: There are no “USPO” hand stamps from 2008 –The USPO ended in 1970!
Sheriff Joe’s Cold Case Posse took 6 months to figure their crazy scenario out. It took me half day to disprove it. It is clear to me that the Cold Case Posse has a profound lack of objectivity and common sense.
Of course, it the faker had managed to obtain a date stamp from the USPO era, it would have already had the “19” in it.
I might add that the document that Sheriff Arpaio considers a fraud was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the Selective Service System under the administration of George W. Bush, October 29, 2008.
See also my original article on the form and the comments that follow.
question:
“There are no USPO date stamps with “2008” on them. “???
The USPO ended on 1970
Although the use of the USPO designation lasted through the 80’s in some cases. No reason to throw away good stamps that probably ran all the way to 1999…
Awesome. Well done Doc. Wait for it……
“But..but..but…but…what if they took an 8 from one stamp and and 0 from another”?
“Then why didn’t they just take a 1 and a 9 as well”?
“But…but…but…but…what if…..
Yeah.
On another note, the stamp was obviously wearing out at the time Obama’s form was stamped.
Note that based on the timing of the reinstated Selective Services we know that it started on
So the data is exactly as was to be expected and Obama got it wrong when he dated it the 30th. Happens to the best of us.
“The USPO ended on 1970”
thanks doc
a momentary brain freeze on my end
Hey Doc,
Are you saying there’s no way to use 2008 bullets in a 1970 gun?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHAM3hRI8_Y
Every significant forgery claim in Mara Zebest’s official report — I find it astonishing that Corsi was involved in the investigation and that Mara Zebest wrote up the official report — was debunked in my book published 6 months ago.
I have commented more in-depth on that here and on last night’s Reality Check Radio Show.
All they are left with is Jerome Corsi’s statement that the INS records are missing from the week of August 1 through 7, and a statement that a currently anonymous person is willing to come forward and state that they were introduced to Barack Obama as “a foreign student” in the 1980s.
Since Obama resided continuously in the United States from the age of 10 years old, except for brief trips overseas — apparently 5 weeks at the longest — the latter claim is ludicrous on its face.
A point that I made in last night’s interview now strikes me as invalid. Since we are dealing with INS records, I suppose there would be no record of an outbound traveler.
I would be interested in seeing those 1961 INS records.
Anyone know if there’s a way of getting ahold of those? Can those be requested?
I was told in school that there were no dumb questions, so I will ask: If a forger wanted a stamp that said 1980, why would they go to the trouble of modifying one from 2008, rather than just ordering a brand new one that said exactly what they wanted it to say from any of the many suppliers of custom rubber stamps?
Apparently they are only on line up to 1957 http://nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/cold-case-posse-ins-records/
Also, Corsi supposedly looked only for flights into Hawai. Flights from Kenya (even today) go through Europe. In 1961, there were no direct flights from Europe to Hawaii; they would have landed in the US on the East Coast, mainly New York, or perhaps Chicago.
Graduates of US high schools are not considered foreign students, whatever their citizenship.
John Woodman, your investigation is of little merit compared to that of the Cold Case Posse for the very simple reason that you lacked the sufficient resources and skills to make your findings. The Cold Posse has spent 6 months and has ultilized the top resources and skills. Your investigation can’t compare to them. This it is still an open investigation, not everything can be disclosed at the present time.
The INS Records Obot counter argument is of no merit. It is based on speculation and conjecture, something that Cold Case Posse specifically said they weren’t going to entertain. It should also be pointed out that Dr. Corsi was able to get ahold of MICROFILM copies of the INS records. Apparently the microfilm records have been tampered with. Unless, Obots have managed to get their hands on the microfilm copies, their arguments are speculation and of little merit.
Well sometimes things that are obvious to one person are not obvious to another. I appreciate the comment and I updated the article to be clearer.
The Cold Case Posse story is that such things aren’t available to the public. Of course the question is why use a rubber stamp in the first place — why not a computer image?
I would be interested in research on this.
Even in 1961, it seems to me that there would have been many possible incoming flights from Africa/ Europe into the United States. In order to exclude the possibility of Stanley Ann Dunham Obama being on one of those flights, it seems to me that one would need to search them all, for the first 3 to 4 weeks following August 4, 1961.
I would also be very interested in whether it’s even true that inbound records for Hawaii are missing for August 1 through 7. Forgive my skepticism, but I don’t just trust Corsi’s word on this.
What’s the likelihood of Stanley Ann Obama, even if she did fly from Nairobi to Honolulu on, say, August 7, having an inbound INS record into Hawaii? It’s looking to me like it would be pretty small.
The Cold Case Posse used Mara Zebest as their “expert”, someone Woodman debunked in his book. The Posse are either birthers, or just clueless. Their “sufficient resources” didn’t even include the Mac software the White House used to create the PDF. This wasn’t a law enforcement investigation, it was a bunch of volunteer birthers in a clown car.
I have already proved beyond doubt the ineptitude of the Posse in my article on their Selective Service claims.
LOLOLOLOLOL omg thank you for that laugh today, I needed it. No, seriously. That is absolutely hilarious.
Yeh, a group of unknown, uncertified no-nothing podunks with zero legal authority “utilized top resources and skills” – in order to help Corsi publish a new book yesterday.
Thanks for the laugh champ.
Really? http://www.rubberstampchamp.com/
John:
The facts speak for themselves. Regarding the birth certificate, I invested literally hundreds of hours into a thorough investigation of the various theories that the birth certificate was a fake. Not one theory advanced by Corsi, Zebest, etc., stood up to examination. Not one.
In the case of claims backed by Jerome Corsi, at the time I counted 23 different allegations of “evidence” or “proof” of fraud. As documented in the book — with clear and factual reasons as to why, in each and every case — every single claim turned out to be — to put it very politely — of no solid evidentiary value whatsoever.
Six months after publication of the book, neither Jerome Corsi nor any one of his merry band of birther experts has managed to refute even one substantive point that I made in the book. Since I estimate that I made around 120 substantive points, that would make the score roughly 120-0.
Every claim advanced in Arpaio’s official report (or was that Mara Zebest’s official report — I get confused) was factually debunked before Arpaio even began his investigation. Although they attempted to answer the scenario of optimization, they did so with an argument that… once again… was debunked before they ever even made it.
You can believe what you want to believe. And undoubtedly, you will believe what you want to believe, since facts don’t matter to hard-core birthers. To normal human beings, however, they do matter.
The fact that Arpaio has a badge and a big microphone gives his “results” a loud voice. Previously, my results have been shouted down in person by Karl Denninger and Mara Zebest. Yesterday, they were shouted down using a different means — an official microphone. But neither volume nor the use of an official microphone can alter facts.
No, I am saying that an authentic USPO date stamp already has a “19” in it.
poor john, his OMG moment turned into Oh My Gosh
the cold case posse produced no acceptable evidence!
Or even just make one yourself. You can’t obtain a new official PO stamp, without being a PO, but if all you need is a stamp that’s indistinguishable from an official one, a little jewelers wax and silicone molding compound and Bob’s yer uncle. This is basic stuff taught in first year forgery school.
You don’t need to cut up a real one, and you don’t need LEGO BLOCKS TO MEASURE IT WITH!
Just speculation and conjecture John. Also bear in mind that the Cold Case Posse specifically said that they have numerous affidavits from graphic artists and FORENSIC EXAMINDERS from around the world looking at this issue. While Mara Zebest may have had hand in the investigation, I would guess she is not the only expert involved. Because this an open criminal investigation of fraud and forgery, not all information can be disclosed at this time. And since this is criminal investigation into forgery and fraud of state and federal documents, I doubt that full faith and credit clause will still apply. Any documents produced by Obama, Hawaii or other entities will now have undergo intense scrutinity.
They are lying.
Or for that matter, why not just buy an old PO hand stamp on EBay, or walk down to your local antique store?
The longest range of commercial jets in 1961 was about 3700 miles (Boeing 707, which entered service in 1958). About the only foreign destinations you could have reached from Honolulu are Vancouver, Canada and some places in northern Mexico (which probably didn’t have direct flights to Hawaii. Even Tokyo would have required a refuelling stop in Guam or one of the islands.
Even today, there is no scheduled non-stop service between Kenya and anywhere in the US. You have to fly through Europe, South Africa, North Africa or the Middle East. In 1961, you would have had to go through London and that would have meant entering the US at NYC.
How do we know those records are missing? Are we to take Corsi’s word for it?
Birthers say a lot of things that simply aren’t true. Orly claimed she had many experts in GA, turns out she had none.
I’d have to agree that they are lying. If you are going to hold a national press conference in order to accuse a sitting POTUS of crimes, you bring your best evidence.
All of the “speculation and conjecture” is on the birther side.
They speculate that “someone” “must have” forged the birth certificate. In doing so, they ignore the plain statement of the HDOH that they sent two certified paper copies to the White House. They ignore the photographs we have of a paper document — which is identical in every way except for effects due to photocopying and optimization — to the two electronic facsimiles released. They ignore the plain evidence of a visible raised seal on at least one of those photographs. They ignore the universal testimony of half a dozen different Hawaii state officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations. And they ignore ALL of the technical analysis made in the 221-pages of my book, which clearly and unequivocally confirms that the idea that what we see in the PDF file is the result of human editing is simply cuckoo.
Again, they have not refuted a single substantive point in the entire book. And the book refutes every substantive point they have ever made.
That is why it was so astonishing to me that Sheriff Joe would lend the name of his office to such an incredible load of non-factual, speculation-and-conjecture-based… [I am restraining myself here to keep this a family-friendly site] astonishingly unsupportable claptrap.
I don’t understand how, in a birthers mind, the fact that Sheriff Joe and Pornstache are still alive isn’t proof that they’re wrong.
I say we have a non-partisan, utterly unbiased “truth squad” investigate Joe Arpaio; apparently there are sworn affidavits from several dozen people who saw Arpaio conversing in hushed tones with Timothy McVeigh in the weeks leading up to the Oklahoma City bombing, the second deadliest terrorist attack on US soil in history. There is also rock-solid evidence suggesting that the reason Arpaio has neglected to investigate several dozen reports of child molestation in his County is that HE raped the children himself.
How about if the Truth Squad is composed of Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Nancy Pelosi, Rachel Maddow, George Soros, and Barney Frank. Just to make sure he gets a fair shake.
Why not, if he has nothing to hide?
John is so easily fooled and manipulated by others, and thinking for himself is something that never may have occurred to him. A victim of his own ignorance and lack of curiosity.
I suppose the relevant question is: What is the likelihood that SAO would have flown on the same airplane from somewhere in Europe to Honolulu, regardless of any stops?
I would expect that approaching the US, they would’ve passed out the immigration cards. Those cards are taken up when you leave the plane and pass through Customs. Any difference in procedure in 1961?
In other news all Georgia Appeal cases were dismissed. Orly screeches…
Actually, my analogy above is faulty. While my nominees for the Arpaio Truth Squad are indeed Liberals, none of them is an out-and-out liar. There really is nobody on the Left who would accuse or condemn Arpaio for something he proved innocent of.
For flights entering the US, you clear customs at the FIRST landing in the US. On a London-New York-San Francisco-Honolulu flight, all passengers deplane and clear customs at New York. This was true in 1961 as it is today.
We’re talking a campaign that raised $700 million and was staffed by folks that even the most die-hard Obama hater would have to admit were damned smart. The idea that they couldn’t have found someone to make whatever rubber stamp they needed is beyond ludicrous.
What I want to know is, what have Orly and all the other birthers done, in this life or in some other, to be condemned to the sisyphean task of making argument after argument, filing brief after brief, case after case, only to be doomed to the inevitable unending death of never being able to gain any real traction on the issue, either now or in the future?
Never mind… I think I know the answer to that.
They chose to put their desired outcome above any and all facts, to believe in their cause in spite of any and all evidence to the contrary. In many cases, they’ve chosen not to even look at the evidence. In most cases, they’ve chosen to dismiss it with a wave of the hand.
So they have been condemned to inevitable and undying failure by none other than themselves.
I do worry for Orly’s patients who will face a dentist who has barely slept. Malpractice suit in the making?
Actually, I do believe that’s true. I used to fly into and out of the US all the time, but the last time I was out of the country has been well over 10 years ago.
Can you produce some documentation of that? That would include 1961? Because I do believe this claim is the last of the significant new bits of information from Arpaio’s posse; and I believe the other new claims have already been debunked. If you can come up with documentation of that, then any and all INS records of people flying into Hawaii are moot.
Since as far as I can tell, all the forgery claims have also already been shown to be without merit, we may see the entire results presented by Arpaio debunked within 24 hours of the start of his press conference.
You have 39 minutes.
[PATIENT]
Oh that hurts! I’m not numb!
[ORLY]
Oh, shut up. Open wide. here I come!
I am your dentist
And I enjoy the career that I picked
I am your dentist
And I get off on the pain I inflict
I thrill when I drill a bicuspid
It’s swell though they tell me I’m maladjusted
And though it may cause my patients distress,
Somewhere, somewhere in heaven above me
I know, I know, that the Kremlin’s proud of me
‘Cause I’m a Birther and a success
Say ah!
[PATIENT]
Ah!
[ORLY]
Say ah!
[PATIENT]
Ah!
[ORLY]
Say ah!
[PATIENT]
Ah!
[ORLY]
Now spit!
I have flown overseas many times since the early 1970s and it has always been true, but I don’t know where one would turn for written documentation. USCIS? The airlines? Maybe IATA (the UN aviation agency). This isn’t just the practice in the US, but everywhere.
I would think such an expert researcher as yourself that claims to have authored a book debunking all these ideas would know how to access those documents rather than ask someone on a blog led by “Dr. Conspiracy”. I certainly can not give much credibility to the quality of your research when you don’t even know how to locate those records. It is quite arrogant of foolish of you to think that you have access to tools and information that are better than a formal and qualified law enforcement agency. You can write all the books you want but this matter is now at a much higher level than arguments between citizens. No, this has advanced to the stage of CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION and all the bloggers in the world are no match for what happens next.
You all gave it a good try while it lasted. What American needs is a formal Congressional investigation with the full power of subpoena to get this resolved rather than a bunch of amatuer self appointed experts with no real qualifications.
I concur with your observation, and your conclusion.
Based not only on this but on the fact that all of their conclusions and publicly-presented points of “evidence” on the birth certificate were debunked before they ever even started their 6-month “investigation,” I also concur in your assessment that “this wasn’t a law enforcement investigation, it was a bunch of volunteer birthers in a clown car.”
I would like to congratulate you on some fine work there.
Are you saying that’s what Arpaio conducted? Is Jerome Corsi a trained law enforcement person? Mara Zebest? Besides, if it is a real law enforcement investigation, what Arizona laws were broken? Where is the arrest?
Nice ad hominem. I guess it’s too hard to address Woodman’s findings in an honest fashion. Makes sense.
Ah yes. The ad-hominem attack. With Mara Zebest, it was that I use — horror of horrors — a less expensive graphics program than she uses. With you, it’s that I’ve never personally filed a Freedom of Information Act request before (since I’ve never needed to), and asked for info here before going and digging out the info myself.
For those unutterably inane reason,s any facts and analysis presented by me can be “safely” ignored.
And that, of course, is followed up by the claim that since Arpaio’s office has some “secret sauce” unavailable to the public, why, any conclusions they present must be unquestionably true. How dare I, a mere Citizen, question the word and the authority of the Sheriff of a county in Arizona?
All this from someone, who apparently believes that the unanimous testimony of half a dozen Hawaii state officials regarding records in their possession is utter rubbish and cannot, at any cost, be believed.
Same birther nonsense. Never engage the actual facts. Why? Because on the factual basis, you don’t have a leg to stand on.
Problem with the Kenya trip theory is Obama Sr was enrolled at the University of Hawaii taking a summer class. The last day of class was Aug 4, 1961 (Obama Jr.’s birthday)
Considering Obama Sr got an A in this class, how could he possibly miss any days or more importantly the final exam and still pass with an A?
Did Stanley Ann travel to Kenya alone? Why would she?
You do understand that Congress accepted the President unanimously don’t you? That they have no problem with his eligibility? Man, you folks might want to read the constitution that you claim to want to protect sometime.
Good luck with that. And when there is no Congressional Investigation, no Impeachment, no successful Indictments, No nothing… will you then, at long last, realize YOU are the one who has been duped? That Arpaio and his gaggle of clowns are all disreputable liars? That THEY are the “bunch of amatuer (sic) self appointed experts with no real qualifications”?
just as ludicrous as the idea that a Fraudster rich and powerful enough to have bought off or threatened effectively the silence of a couple of million Congress, Civil Servants, Judges, Attorneys, Post office workers, and all their friends and families, didn’t have enough left over to hire a competent forger; one who could create a forgery that wasn’t detectable by scanner salesmen and people who sometimes use Illustrator to make brochures
From day one the birthers never bothered to come up with a credible story. Frankly, i thought releasing even the COLB (never mind the LFBC) was unnecessary and perhaps even counter-productive, since there was NO reason to think Obama was born anywhere other than where 99.999% of babies are born-where their parents lived before and after their birth. Certainly, no one in all of history has travelled from the US to Kenya to drop a baby. The foreign students I knew, even when both parents were from overseas, gave birth at the hospital near campus. When the wife was American, even more so.
I continue to believe that Obama should have done what his 42 predecessors did-release nothing and say,”Hey, if you think I’m a liar, don’t vote for me”. He would have won anyway. Yesterday’s fiasco, only re-inforces my belief.
“Here’s an extract from site member Misha’s blogspot where he analysed the issue of which planes/stops etc quite a long time ago….
The Boeing 707 did not go into service until late 1959. When my half-sister flew to/from New York in 1964, half of the time it was on a prop plane. The 707 had not yet replaced all the fleets. So the trip, on a prop plane, would have looked like this:
.
Honolulu – San Francisco, change planes
San Francisco – Chicago, change planes
Chicago – New York, change planes
New York – London, change planes
London – Nairobi
.
That’s five days, plus layovers. The New York – London – Nairobi legs would have been on a BOAC Viscount 810, a prop plane with a top speed of 200 MPH.”
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/search?q=hawaii
.
Actually that’s not entirely accurate. In 1985 I flew from Cairnes, Australia to Honolulu, to San Francisco, to Seattle. We cleared customs in San Francisco. We were segregated in the “International” area of the Honolulu airport during the transfer. Flew Quantas to Hawaii and I think Hawaii to SF.
hey doc:
the DEBUNKED corsi has a new book
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-question-of-eligibility-jerome-r-corsi/1109231833?ean=2940013907225&itm=8&usri=corsi+jerome+r
Doesn’t look like anyone will succeed in a full debunking of the Hawaii INS bit before the top of the hour. Nonetheless, on the points raised, I consider it already tentatively debunked.
It very much appears that Stanley Ann Dunham, IF traveling from Kenya to Hawaii, would have HAD, with essentially 100% certainty, to enter the United States somewhere other than Honolulu — and most likely, a major East Coast city such as New York.
That being the case, the claim of Jerome Corsi that immigration records into Hawaii are missing for the week of August 1-7 would appear to be completely irrelevant; and it appears to me, given the other evidence and debunking brought forth so far, that Arpaio’s entire 6-month investigation — unless they can answer the objections raised — has produced literally nothing of any actual value in justifying the “preliminary conclusions” they presented to the public.
I could be having a senior moment of memory here but I seem to recall that the info in Obama Senior’s released Immigration file meant it was not possible for him to have left the USA at that time otherwise he would not have been able to get back in.
If she travelled at all she definitely trvelled without him.
Here’s another question:
Nairobi is just about halfway around the world from Honolulu. What’s the likelihood that a traveler to Kenya in 1961 would’ve gone via Asia rather than via Europe?
I’m going to say this one isn’t fully debunked… yet. Still, it’s not looking very likely that it can stand up to a great deal of scrutiny.
What the birthers need — and don’t have — is real evidence of their theory.
Someone should comprehensively verify and document all of this, with the sources.
My question is, according to another source, it was not allowed for women 8-9 months pregnant to fly back then. I’m not sure where this was spelled out and documented, but makes total sense as far as the airlines were concerned at that time.
Also, would she have been allowed to take all the vaccines required to travel to those countries at that time?
Apparently neither does the Sheriff….somehow they forgot to even contact the people with the original files…you know, those in the State of Hawaii.
You mean a group of unpaid volunteers with an established agenda and no established qualifications.
I’m still waiting for the indictments, or even the suggestion that it is being brought to a prosecutor, who is taking it remotely seriously
“bunch of amatuer self appointed experts with no real qualifications” Rather fair description of the clown show Sheriff Joe put on yesterday. Don’t hold your breath waiting for any formal Congressional investigation. Not happening. So how many Congressional Republicans have even mentioned the Sheriff Joe show? He’s a joke and the only people not in on it are the birthers. But go ahead. Keep saying “any day now.” It’s a well practiced line by you guys….how did it work this time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGPo-HfbGgY
Sometimes I tell a jury that the truth fits together seamlessly, without those inconvenient gaps, nooks, and crannies that always occur when you are confronted with a lie. Looking at the garbled framework of the cobbled together theories and conspiracies that are necessary if you accept the birther position, that alone should telegraph to a reasonable person that they are wrong. When I got up this morning I was confident that those with the time and background would expose the faults in the Arpaio “6 month” investigation by nightfall. I am proud to say that Dr. C, Mr. Woodward, and others have met my expectations. Good work and I am sure there is more to come. I want to know who these “experts” are. I feel confident that when all is said and done this was an “investigation” by the birthers for the birthers which shall not soon perish from this earth,
The problem with going an Asia route is there just weren’t the flight paths back then. It would have actually been a longer trip to get there than to fly to the West Coast, then the east coast, then Europe and finally to Africa (probably a couple more hops), To go via Asi you’d go north to Guam, off to Tokyo, down to the Philippines, across to Singapore, into India, probably up to Iran, across to Iraq. etc. etc.
Just not a very efficient path.
What for? The same claims will come up from the same birthers in the next two year wash and rinse cycle.
Relax John, you’re doing your bit with aplomb in your areas of expertise. Anyone still birther now is staying birther til they die. It’s incurable. Have a beer, smile an inscrutable smille and then teach children to point at them and laugh.
It is NO SUCH THING!
If Obama, Sr. is placed definitively in Honolulu at the time of Barack, Jr’s birth, then the theory that Stanley Ann Dunham Obama, his wife, was alone in Kenya is pretty much insane.
First of all, it’s an EXTREMELY dubious proposition that she would travel to Kenya heavily pregnant. WHY? Why on EARTH why?
NO ONE would travel to Kenya in 1961 for the actual purpose of giving birth to a baby. One would stay right at home, where
1) there was medical care of known high quality and familiar surroundings, not whatever one might expect in a hospital in East Africa, with the added uncertainty of possible language, cultural and “she’s just a foreigner” barriers and problems.
2) one would have the support network and continued good relations with parents and other relatives
3) this would be all the more true of a firstborn child, and it would be all the more true of an 18-year-old white girl.
Secondly, if she had been heavily pregnant, there is almost certainly NO WAY she would’ve wanted to get on an airplane and travel literally halfway around the world (especially in 1961) in that state of being unless someone absolutely forced her to do so.
Third, if a baby was on the way and she wanted to visit Kenya, the only remotely sensible thing to do would appear be to wait until after the baby was born, so as to be able to present him or her to family members in Kenya.
Fourth, if Obama Sr. is confirmed to have been in Hawaii, it would’ve been an insane proposition for his wife to have left him in Honolulu and go off to Kenya. A person simply doesn’t travel halfway around the world to visit her husband’s relatives — who are complete and utter strangers to her — without said husband by her side.
The proposition that Stanley Ann Dunham Obama, in lack of any rock-solid evidence actually placing her on an airplane to or from Kenya, is simply insane.
Anyone remember… “Just show us the long form, and this will all go away….”?
I don’t understand how this can be … can someone please explain it?
The author of the above article, Obama Conspiracy Theories’. said that: “There are no “USPO” hand stamps from 2008” and that “The USPO ended in 1970”!
Here’s my problem!
If the USPO ended in 1970 (and assuming that this infers that all hand stamps, thus, ended in 1970 along with it), then how was it possible for the Arpaio news conference to have several documented examples of 1980 stamps (that he supplied for comparative purposes) to have been included in his following report?
To wit: http://www.impeachobamacampaign.com/sheriff-joe-arpaio-cold-case-posse-video-on-obama-selective-service-fraud/
in those day you weren’t allowed to travel past your 6th month
another source documented how difficult the trip would have been let alone expensive
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/03/obama-born-in-kenya-no.html
First of all, there is no dispute that the USPO ended in 1970. You can easily look this up.
However, when then name changed, they didn’t just throw out all their hand cancelers and buy new ones. They continued to old ones for a while. Indeed one hand cancel for the USPO dated as late as 1987 is known to have been used.
However, rubber stamps wear out, and they would have worn out before 30 years have passed. So any antique USPO stamp a faker might have would already have a 19xx in it, and not 2008. Zullo’s whole argument hinges on the public being unable to obtain authentic date slugs (this in and of itself questionable) so they had to use what was already in the stamp, whatever that is.
Weigh that crazy scenario with a perfectly normal 10-year-old stamp from which the year was missing, worn or poorly inked.
Are we to trust that the CCP didn’t falsify any of their documents, but have to take is as given that the State of Hawaii, the Whitehouse, Na the President absolutely falsified theirs?
You can buy anything to do with the post office, even old postage paid dies, which are certainly more security risk than a hand cancel stamp.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/270921522549
The President should never have shown any form ever. He should have given an interview pointing out the ridiculousness of the biirther fairy tale and left it at that. Remember, he was AHEAD in the polls when he released the COLB and few even noticed when he did it.
Yes, that was the first example where the birthers raised claims of forgery until we found USPO stamps dating to well within the middle of the 80’s. But the USPO ended in 1970 and became the USPS
you guys seem worried/panicked to me…
[You would be mistaken. Pissed, but not worried. Doc.]
Hi John,
I posted several updates on this yesterday, thanks to the swift work from Curious Blue in looking into this over that The Fogbow.
Here is the INS archive link:
http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/085.html#85.3
Have you read The Fogbow’s report on this yet? By the end of yesterday, they had already provided a full breakdown of ALL the wacky claims made in the Press Conference, including the INS travel claim and even sourced who first made up the nonsense story about Bill Ayers mother’s yard…and why it too easily fails the smell test.
Their short summary report is well sourced with both the reasons and the source links to back up their analysis:
http://www.thefogbow.com/arpaio-report/
That certainly was the publicity goal that WND and Arpaio were trying to achieve – goading members of Congress into taking up this fool’s errand. From WND’s perspective, that would be the ideal political farce of Swift Boating they could achieve.
I’ll say with quite a bit of confidence – NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. As crazy as the GOP congress critters have been in doubling down and going down various stupid and dangerous legislative paths this session, they are still not crazy enough to take up the Birther Turd.
What WND and Arpaio were banking on was an Appeal of Authority – that by merely using his nationally known name and abusing the authority of his office to lend credence to this farce, that they could GOAD both the media and other figures in government to foolishly go down this Birther Rabbit Hole.
They severely miscalulated on how completely the Birther cause is a poisoned well.
Instead of re-stoking a media conversation with their publicity Concern Trolling sham, it so far has been widely panned and derided or utterly ignored altogether. The story is already dying on the vine and doesn’t seem to have any legs at all. So it is just another DUD and EPIC FAIL that will quickly fade into irrelevance and be mostly forgotten.
Their main problem is the very weakness of what they presented, and that was their biggest miscalculation. WND has to be blamed for this failure – as the whole circus show yesterday was little more than trotting out the same FAILED PDF nonsense that WND couldn’t even get much traction with when they tried it the first time.
So, all they did was present a bunch of warmed-over nonsense that already had failed muster and even worse – only received a little bit of coverage in its original form by being SOUNDLY DEBUNKED.
So yes, the lesson of object failure is to not try to stoke a media controversy by doing nothing more than lazily and sloppily trying to feed them the same poo they’ve seen and rejected a long time ago.
The lessons from the fables of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” have simply played out here.
So in summary, NO. There won’t be any Congressional Investigation as a result. Not even they are stupid enough to touch it.
By failing to make a dent in turning this into a media firestorm, they have failed to stoke any public conversation that could lend the needed pressure to their “cause”. What reactions there have been have been mostly ridicule and scorn.
So, it has not just already FAILED, but it has spectacularly backfired and only served to make Birtherism an even more failed and mocked poison pill in the process.
Face it, this was nothing more than a despesrate Hail Mary attempt to create a new Swift Boat moment for the 2012 cycle and they fumbled it…badly.
Who can forget!
Which is why all the immediate Concern Trolling “if he would just….” attempts are utterly weak and fall flat on their face.
You haven’t debunked anything regarding the selective service card. As I recall, the posse had two issues with the selective service card. The year had only two digits and the year was not aligned properly. They offered a possible explanation for the year not being properly aligned. You attack their explanation without addressing what’s wrong with the card. If you’re going to claim that you’ve debunked the selective service card fraud then you’ve got to address all of the issues raised concerning the card.
Exactly how is it not properly aligned? The “80” is where I’d expect it to be if the “19” either dropped out, was worn out, or was underinked. I wouldn’t expect the “80” to be centered.
More importantly, the Cold Case Posse’s “findings” haven’t proven any real fraud either.
Merely pointing out that something is unusual isn’t evidence of anything. Which is why they can’t and won’t make any actual charges or pursue their mere allegations beyond the simple dog & pony show they put on…
All sound and fury, signifying nothing and going nowhere fast…
Well if you think you’ve got such an Iron clad case, why don’t you get yourself a copy of the Arpaio report and march yourself right into the local office of the FBI and demand an immediate investigation?
Let us know how that works out for you, Ok Zippy?
That fact that no one, from Arpaio on down, is going to take their report to a prosector, demonstrates their complete lack of faith in it.
Daniel – I don’t claim to have proved anything. Are you claiming you can debunk the selective service card fraud evidence? What’s the explanation for 2 digit years instead of 4 and why is the year not properly aligned. I was just looking around to see if somebody had really debunked the evidence fraud – I don’t think it’s been debunked here.
Again – the “19” could have easily fallen out if it were glued on, the ink pad might not have caught it because it was recessed, it could have been severedly worn out, and/or the photocopy might not have reproduced it properly if it were a weak “19”.
If one of those was the cause, the “80” is right where I’d expect it to be.
These are all just hypotheses, but so is the claim that it’s fraud because there’s no visible “19” or that the “80” isn’t centered.
What has been debunked is the silly claim from Mike Zullo about altering a 2008 date stamp.
I personally don’t think that there is anything to be debunked otherwise. There is no “fraud evidence.” Remember, that form was obtained form the Selective Service through FOIA before Obama was President. Why would a George Bush Selective Service fake a document to make Obama look good. Makes no sense.
The date stamp was 2-digits because it was worn out, badly inked or broken. To suggest that this evidence of fraud is pure nut-case conspiracy thinking.
I’m thinking the “19” might have been glued on. If it was past 10 years from when it should have been replaced, then I could easily imagine that it peeled off.
As to why they didn’t replace it, who knows? I sometimes use a local contract post office that has a hand stamp with an incorrect city name, but the right zip code. The zip code is shared between three communities, and whoever produced it at the USPS sent one with the wrong city name, but the correct name of the CPO. I asked why they didn’t replace it, and was told that they didn’t think it was that important.
Aparrently you missed the class on “burden of proof”.
Sheriff Jerkoff and the gang Have to show positively that an actual problem exists with the SS Card, and that actual tampering took place. All they’ve done is a whole mess of Shoulda/woulda/coulda, along with claims of such and such could never happen (without actually proving that it could never happen). They’ve provided no actual objective, substantive evidence.
We who debunk, on the other hand, only have to raise such points as to establish reasonable doubt. We don’t have to prove that it didn’t happen the way Arpaio says it must have, we only have to show that there are other reasonable explanations.
That’s what’s known as the burden of proof. The accuser bears the burden. The critics of the accuser bear no burden.
Until birthers learn that simple but iron-clad concept, they will continue to lose, every time, continually.
y_p_w – Maybe you’re right but I’m not convinced. I don’t find it believable that Obama’s card would be the only one with only two year digits. If your theory is true then I would expect there to be other cards with only 2 year digits. If there were other cards with only 2 year digits the investigators would have seen them. Also, wasn’t the “80” to the right compared to where it was on other stamps? The posse didn’t say that they expected the “80” to be centered; it was not in the same position relative to the surrounding circle as the “80” on other stamps.
How do you know it’s the only one?
Daniel – Like I said, if there were other cards like Obama’s then the investigators would have seen them. If there were other similar cards then of course I would not expect an investigator worth his salt to make an issue of it.
Why would it have to be?
Have you ever used an adjustable digit hand stamp? It’s typically just a piece of rubber with various digits. They can be aligned this way or that way depending on the way it’s made and the vagarities of how the band was adjusted.
The “80” is right where I’d expect it to be. I’ve seen some hand stamps where the last two digits were well to the left of being off center.
I’ve seen stamps with all sorts of variations. They’re made by different vendors and may have different typefaces. Some numbers are smaller. Some are aligned to the left or right. I have a hard time believing that there’s some sort of forgery going on with the Selective Service with a FOIA request from before the time Obama was President.
y_p_w – Well I guess I don’t see a smoking gun with the selective service card. It will be interesting to see if any more evidence is forthcoming. Good night.
How many cards did the posse examine and how many from Hawaii that were stamped in 1980?
What “top resources”?
Well even assuming that they would be honest enough to reveal evidence that goes against them, how many cards do you think they examined?
We know that Selective Service cards were mailed in batches, so how many cards were mailed that same day to that post office? Oh wait, we don’t know which post office, so how may cards were mailed that day to all the post office in that entire area? How many stamps were employed per post office?
So of several thousand possible cards, how many did the “investigators” examine to make that conclusion? 100% of the ones from that batch? Hardly likely, so how many? 20%? 10%? 1%? 0.1%? And what are the likelihood that of a few thousand cards with a few hundred rubber stamps, that the few they examined would be guaranteed to have two from the same stamp?
And add to that the possibility that it could be simply a stamping anomaly, A scrap of paper from a three hole punch falls on the envelope before the stamp hits it, where the 19 happen to be, would produce exactly what you see, an apparent two digit date.
So which is more likely, a scrap of paper in a busy post office, or a worldwide conspiracy demanding the silence of millions of people and the foreknowledge that young Obama would someday run for President?
Hmmmm……
So once again, how do you know there were no other cards?
Wouldn’t a forgery be perfect?
Wouldn’t a forger worthy of being hired by the most powerful man in the country have more sense than to forget to put the 19 on the fake date stamp?
One of the biggest blows to the whole forged everything birther stupidity is that Obama could manage to orchestrate the perfectly flawless by off and extortion of millions of people, yet hire a forger so incompetent that a scanner salesman and a hack blogger could easily tell.
Simple explanation: When the USPO became the USPS they didn’t throw away all the old stamps and someone in this office simply fixed the old one they had so they could use it after the changeover.
Big time conspiracy explanation: Sorry, it’s Friday evening and I’m tired and don’t have enough active brain cells to conjure up one.
The stuff on EBay is from Great Britain.
AS I recall you took your Selective Service registration card to the Post Office and they stamped it for you and sent it on. I don’t recall but I suspect they probably checked ID, maybe a birth certificate, to make sure the information on the registration card was correct and then the clerk stamped it with his/her stamp.
Next in line was probably someone sending grandma a Christmas card. The clerk probably didn’t see that many registrations so finding more of them with this stamp is highly improbable.
Major Eaton: I assure you, Dr. Brody, Dr. Jones. We have top men working on it right now.
Indiana Jones: Who?
Major Eaton: Top. Men.
For this very reason, quite a few of the “anomalous” things that people have brought up are no evidence of hanky-panky.
Best policy for a forger would most likely be to leave off the anomalies.
So many of these things — to quote Forrest Gump — “well, just don’t make no sense.”
I was kind of imagining the Mad Hatter….in an MCSO uniform.
Didn’t Arpaio go out of his way several times to reiterate that the Cold Case Posse was specifically a volunteer force, and not actually law enforcement?
I just had to laugh at that video. Not because of the content, but because Orly sounds like a man doing a woman’s voice.
Going over the transcript, one finds a lot of CYA going on … whispered “Don’t go there”s and such. This was a political stunt, nothing legal about it. Nice, fresh kangaroo poo, cheap in Arizona!
Others have brought up some good points (that there are mundane reasons the ’19’ is missing from the stamp, the vast criminal conspiracy would have been able to afford a better forger). What I’m thinking is, “What is Obama’s motive?”
If the forged Selective Service registration is done with a 2008 stamp, then it was done in 2008 or later, when the President is in his late 40s/early 50s. But why? Registration for Selective Service has no bearing on eligibility to hold office.
Registration for Selective Service is mandatory for all male U.S. Citizens between the ages of 18 and 25. You have to do it within a month of your 18th birthday. I remember getting something in the mail around February of 1999 reminding me to register, which I did early April 1999.
So I guess you could float the hypothesis that Obama forgot or neglected to register. Okay fine. The penalty for that is a hefty fine and possible jail time. But the thing is, there’s kind of a high burden of proof on the part of the government (they have to prove that you intentionally refused to register, rather than just forgot).
There are some laws at the state and federal levels that require selective service registration to qualify for social programs, but a successful U.S. Senator, a best selling author, accomplished lawyer, and rising star of the Democratic party in his 40s isn’t going to need that.
So you say Barack Obama forged a selective service registration card. I ask: why?
Also, isn’t the Selective Service registration the source of the Social Security Number which they claim is stolen? So Barack Obama… forged a selective service registration and used a fake social security number? Not only was the forger so inept that he left off the ’19’ from the date stamp, but he also didn’t bother using Obama’s correct Social Security Number? How does that make any sense?
“Is it safe?”
Except for conservatives. They believe in guilty until proven innocent. It is a great tradition started by Father Coughlin. Conservative radio hosts praise him to this day.
Because in spite of the fact that the public already knows he did drugs as a young man, the public embarrassment of having forgotten or failed to fill out a Selective Service Registration card at the age of 19 is a much greater hazard to him than than the potential of being impeached, stripped of the Presidency, disgraced forever and possibly jailed for having committed conspiracy to forge government documents.
Can you profuce a video and explain how layers in Obama’s “pdf” file were created?
Yes or No.
Either you can replicate results that will resemble Obama’s “pdf” file or you cannot. What is it? Put up or shut up!
Dozens of people have done it, including, if I’m not mistaken, your host the Doctor.
I could do it for you easily enough, in fact, because you can vary the degree of optimization that produces those layers, I can even give you as many or as few of the layers as you’d like.
Where is the link to a video demonstrating your work? I hope that your optimization will nicely separate date stamps into separate layers. Of course instructions shown in your video will make it possible for others to replicate your work, right?
You’re six months behind the times.
I already explained, in great detail, exactly how — and just as importantly, why — the layers were created.
In fact, I explained virtually every detail of the process — again, including the why.
Not only that, I gave examples of documents that display virtually every “anomaly” shown in the White House PDF file.
The birther “experts” say, “Well, you haven’t created an exact duplicate of the PDF. So what? Neither have they. Nor — by any sane stretch of the imagination — can they, using the methods they claimed were used.
Ron Polland tried it. I think he said it took him a month to produce his “duplicate.” I think he also created it took a freaking genius of a forger to produce the “anomalies” in the birth certificate.
Mara Zebest concluded that the forger must have been incredibly stupid.
I’ve seen nothing from her or Corsi regarding an attempt to manually recreate a document with all of the characteristics of the White House PDF. The explanation I advanced EASILY accounts for virtually every characteristic of the document. Hers leaves a thousand unanswerable questions hanging.
Most importantly, they have absolutely ZERO explanation for the “why.” Why would a forger have spent weeks putting in all kinds of ? “Um… because the forger was incredibly stupid. No wait… he was incredibly smart. Well.. but you haven’t produced an exact duplicate of the PDF! Yeah! That’s it!”
There are FAR more possible ways to optimize a PDF than there are people on the planet Earth. Nonetheless, the documents we already have display virtually every characteristic shown in the White House PDF.
And the one or two minor things that optimization doesn’t explain are better explained by mechanical processes than human tampering.
But wait… all of this ignores the utter impossibility of there having been any meaningful tampering with the PDF in the first place. Why? Well, for starters, we know with absolute certainty that the PDF file can NOT have been the original document, due to its lack of detail relative to the AP document. We also know beyond any reasonable doubt that the AP document can’t be the original, either.
We also have photographs of a paper document with a raised seal on it. This is the same document that Savannah Guthrie testified to have held in her hands and felt the raised seal. We also know that the Hawaii Dept of Health swears they sent two certified paper documents to the White House, and the one shown on the WH site is an image of one of them.
And ALL of the information on any of the images is identical. There is no REMOTELY plausible “forgery” theory that explains all of this.
The scenario presented at Arpaio’s press conference was a birther Big Lie — and there is EVERY reason to believe that both Corsi and Zebest KNOW it’s a Big Lie. If they don’t, they darn well should know.
In any event… as to your arrogant challenge — which is also an ignorant challenge — of “Put up or shut up!” — I put up six months ago. And what I put up comprehensively shot down every bit of the birther Big Lie that Corsi, Zebest and Zullo paraded onto the state two days ago.
The only responses from Corsi and Zebest were: 1) attempts to shout me down and apply blanket statements of ridicule, while giving no reason whatsoever for any such ridicule, 2) a complete failure to answer the fact that I pointed out a specific case in which Corsi presented indisputably FALSE information to the public, 3) a blanket statement — backed by absolutely zero evidence whatseover — that “nothing” in my book had any merit at all, 4) an ABSOLUTE failure on their part to answer even a single point of the comprehensive refutation of their Birther Big Lie, and 5) the continued, even more widespread publication of their Birther BIg Lie, and 6) the placing on the market of yet another Corsi ebook touting the Birther Big Lie, for $10 a pop.
And when I say “attempts to shout me down” — I’m not speaking figuratively. I mean literally.
Your claims are impressive – where is the video demonstrating how optimization process creates a 9 layer document?
You could use similar procedure as used by Arpaio’s investigators. Take a printout of Obama’s pdf file then feed it to your program and show us how do we end up with 9 layers?
Their word is worthless – bunch of corrupted liars. They have violated UIPA law many times and prevented the release of public information.
Again, I already wrote an entire book on the subject. All the pieces are well demonstrated in the book. I’m probably not going to do a video as well — unless you want to finance the time it takes to create such a video. If you’re happy to do that, I’m happy to make a video. I take PayPal.
If you’d like the very short version: all 8 layers other than the background layer are single-color. The optimizing algorithm searches the image for things it thinks it can split out into a single color in order to save space while maintaining high definition. It saves space by virtue of the fact that for each and every one of those hundreds or thousands of pixels in a layer, it only has to record color information one time for the entire layer.
Where items are contiguous and are close in color, they are generally taken to be parts of the same thing. The reason we have 8 layers is because the optimizing algorithm detected that many different colors of things that seemed to be single-shade items. This is why we have odd things spread out across all kinds of different layers, including letters from the form, etc. Humans group things by words, phrases, etc.
There’s a much fuller explanation in the book.
Pretty much everything we see in the PDF is explained by the simple proposition that someone scanned a document, sharpened the image, and optimized it for the web. Again, we have KNOWN files that display the exact same optimization characteristics (“anomalies”) as seen in the PDF.
The ONE real attempt at refutation that Corsi and Zebest have made appeared in the press conference video. Their only new claim is that “optimization must produce more layers, unless it’s a very simple file” simply isn’t true. The example file from my book is hardly simpler, and it came out with 5 layers. That easily allows for twice the complexity to produce 9 layers. So their attempt at refutation fails completely.
But again, it’s not complexity, per se. It’s number of distinctly-detected single color items.
The demand that critics of the forgery claim produce an exact duplicate of the file; and a demonstration that one or a few settings failed to produce exactly the same effect is a red herring, a fallacy, and a double standard. We have known examples that show virtually every characteristic of the PDF, including some very strange ones. It is impossible to manually produce an exact duplicate using any remotely rational manual method. If you apply the same standard to their theory that they attempt to apply to optimization, you find that the optimization scenario passes; and their theory fails with thudding colors.
Any forgery theory leaves multiple unanswered — and unanswerable — questions in the PDF.
All of this takes a back seat to the relationship between the 4 images that we have. There are several different ways to analyze what’s happening. But the independent analyses all lead to the same conclusion.
And that conclusion is not the birther Big Lie presented in AZ by Corsi, Zebest, and Zullo.
Corsi has backed at least 23 known claims of “evidence” or “proof” of forgery, as documented in the book. ALL of them have been shown to fail under scrutiny.
His claim of fraud in the sequence number was based on a clear and obvious falsehood — for those who bothered to check his reference. He has never retracted the false claim.
The theory itself was disproven by the revelation of a certificate number on a certificate that he himself and WND certified to the public as genuine. The certificate number was literally hidden by WND, but was accidentally leaked because they briefly posted — before scrubbing it — an image online that showed the unedited back of the certificate.
I was able to enhance the image and extract the certificate number. It killed the already shaky sequence-number-fraud theory.
Just as he has never retracted the obviously false claim, he has never admitted the failure of the theory.
Of course, what a surprise, a self-proclaimed computer expert who cannot create a video demonstrating his theory. There is no point in you replying to my posts – use your time for more productive effort – creation of the video that will refute results of Arpaio’s investigation.
I could recognize the same old aliases of pro-Obama posters on this blog – they seem to be dedicated foot soldiers. Let’s see if they are willing to help you out and finance your work.
Do you know how stupid you sound?
For you (and Clueless Joe ‘Pants on Fire’ Arpaio) to be correct would require believing the following:
Everyone in the Hawaii Health Records department is corrupt, plus the REPUBLICAN ex-Governor who certified the BC.
Every Judge and Elections Commission Officer who accepted the BC is corrupt, including the one in Indiana who is the Republican head of the Romney Campaign in his State.
That Chief Justice Roberts is either corrupt or too stupid to know BHO was ineligible before swearing him in as President.
That all evidence that BHO was born anywhere else has been hidden from the most massive search for such evidence in history.
That the .pdf ‘analysed’ by the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight was used to created what you call the forgery on file in HI, even though the .pdf is of so poor resolution that that is impossible.
That Arpaio’s Birfer Clown Car could be trusted as impartial… Hilarious, as no non-partisan witnesses were included.
That loony, vague assertions that a document COULD have been forged is the same as PROOF that it WAS.
That thousands of people, including most Republicans in Congress, including those who helped Impeach Bill Clinton, are part of a conspiracy to block the ” truth” about BHO.
Oh, right. We’re the crazy ones.
How about you pack up your traitorous anti-American nonsense, your sour grapes, your baseless slander, your thinly-veiled racism and bitter resentments, and move back to whatever backward country who came from, leaving us real Americans who believe in facts, fair elections and the Constitution behind.
As soon as possible, please.
Oh, and “ALIAS ‘naturalized citizen,” I POST UNDER MY REAL NAME.
I’m trying to picture Naturalizedcitizen arguing with a noted chemist.
“Yeah you’ve published papers in noted peer-reviewed journals, been lauded by some of the top minds in the field as a brilliant scholar, and won a Nobel Prize, but have you produced a YouTube video? Real experts produce YouTube videos.”
He seems to be displaying the standard Birther line of drivel. “You have failed to prove your claims because for as much as you have provided, it is not this one thing I demanded.” The piece of evidence that would satisfy a Birther is like the asymptote. No matter what you provide, the evidence to falsify their theory is some thing you didn’t supply.
Oh yeah? Obama does not tie a dog to the roof of his car, for 12 hours. Obama does not have a son, who hung a stray dog. Corrupt officials? Huckabee stopped the criminal investigation of his son, after torturing a dog to death.
Why do conservatives hate dogs?
John Woodman is a conservative Tea Party member. He’s definitely not a supporter of President Obama. It fascinates me that Birthers can’t seem to conceive that someone can disagree with their conspiracy theories and ALSO disagree with President Obama politically.
How some of the birther trolls go on makes me wonder if they have ever once scanned a document. When sending something out that needs to look at least somewhat professional yet not a 25 megabyte monster, I find I have to scan and rescan, adjusting the settings until I get it right. Still, the receiver may still see a lousy looking PDF for a host of reasons (old computer, bad setting etc.
The trolls here would understand this better if they actually read what John Woodman has written here.
Speaking of the Tea Party, is Christine O’Donnell going to be in a production of “The Aristocrats”?
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/11/odonnell-in-aristocrats.html
So, the birther “experts” include KBOA and peeing Rudy.
Why do conservatives hate reproductive freedom, and call advocates “sluts”?
*waaaaah*
Once again, poor ignorant and spoiled Birther demands unicorns from everyone!
Sorry, Birther. No one here has to pay any attention to your demands. We don’t owe you anything and you sure aren’t worth wasting time on creating some dumb video for in the first place.
It is not like you’ve demonstrated the ability to learn from anything people tell you anyways.
Just as the HI DOH and the courts don’t need to cater to your silly and unreasonable demands, neither do we.
So tough cookies, Off you go now, back to pouting in your corner…
This is a good example of birthers inventing facts to support their conspiracy theories. Woodman made several videos. I see this a lot here on the blog. It appears that birthers are so certain that they are right that they believe that any necessary statement to maintain their theory must by necessity be true.
When you are talking about real facts, say the theory of gravity, you can assert that things are true that you haven’t observed just based on the theory. The problem with birthers, is that their basic assumption is wrong and so every conclusion solely based on that assumption is unsupported (and likely wrong).
Because they’re control freaks. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear them approve of “honor killings”.
What’s the explanation for the stamps at the bottom of the birth certificate being evenly aligned horizontally?
What’s the explanation for the stamped text having a mis-spelling, TXE instead of THE?
Thanks for asking.
The stamp actually is not perfectly aligned horizontally. It’s done pretty well, but it’s not the perfection that you’d get if you used a computer program to place text. All you have to do is open the White House PDF file in a program that allows you to overlay a grid on the image, and zoom in.
Also, at high resolution, you can see that THE is spelled properly but that wear and smudges create the illusion of an “X”. The best way to verify this is to take the higher-resolution images from the Associated Press and zoom in.
In my article. Long form artifacts vanish at higher resolution, I demonstrate the fallacy of “TXE” and other bogus claims of curved lines and straight text, plus the infamous Onaka smiley face.
My other article, Reply to Douglas Vogt, takes on the bogus claims of Vogt, one of which is the alleged perfect alignment of the text in the stamp. There is a nice blow-up of the stamp with a grid overlay – click to enlarge.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time delving into birther certificate objections (both with the long and the short forms — something largely forgotten by the current birther generation) and I have uniformly found that the objections fall apart under scrutiny.
It’s standard practice for Hawaiian officials to include a mis-spelled word in their stamps. Forgers don’t know that, so they will make stamps with all the words spelled correctly, thus giving themselves away. TXE/THE was the word chosen for April 2011. If it had been done in another month, they would have mis-spelled a different word. What’s this month’s word? What’s it worth to you?
TXAT’S BRILLIANT!
Hence the smilie.
“The YouTubes are infallible”
— Texas Rep. Leo Berman
Good ol’ Mark Gillar wrote me about ‘T::E’ last month, asking what “the latest theory” was! Same as it ever was, birther-boy.
I assume this is a typical example of the work of the “in-depth” investigation. Contacting happenstance acquaintances from online discussion boards!
No invite to the Maricopa shindig. Guess I gave the “wrong” answers.
As I said, I’m VERY happy to create such a video. As long as you’re willing to pay me for my time in doing so.
Creation of such a video is completely unnecessary, since I explained the entire thing in a great deal of detail in the book.
The demand that I MUST create a VIDEO in addition to the book or, well, I’m a liar, is typical of hard-core birther unreasonable demands and constant moving the bar.
Who are you to think you should demand that I spend my time creating a video going over material I’ve already gone over, just to satisfy your personal demand?
Let me give you a clue: You’re nobody.
In fact, you’re A Nobody on the internet, who doesn’t even have the guts to step forward from behind a nickname and be known for who you are.
fascinates me that Birthers can’t seem to conceive that someone can disagree with their conspiracy theories and ALSO disagree with President Obama politically.
This is a caricature. I think most conservatives don’t really care whether people go out and live according to whatever moral and sexual standards they choose. I also think it’s not reasonable to expect that everyone should have the same view, the same moral standards, and necessarily approve of your choices.
You might want to go sleep around with whomever you choose, whenever you choose. A lot of conservatives would think that’s “wrong” and disapprove. So what? Conservatives have a right to look with disdain on the actions of others, just as others have a right to choose their actions. It’s a free country.
The real objection of conservatives, as I see it is: Why should we be forced to pay for your “reproductive” and sexual choices? If you’re an adult, and you want contraceptives, then you should pay for them. Not me. Not conservatives, who in fact may well find such choices immoral.
Do you like to be required by the government to fund behavior that you find immoral?
1) a) it’s not as hard as you might think to stamp something straight; b) if they were perfectly aligned it would be no indication of fraud; c) they aren’t.
2) it doesn’t. It’s just a bad stamp. In fact, if you examine it closely, there is evidence it’s an H and nothing else.
I could write almost exactly the same paragraph. In my case, I might phrase it thus:
I’ve spent an unreal amount of time delving into birth certificate objections (mostly with the long but also to some degree with the short form) and I have found every single time that the objections fall apart under scrutiny.
Something got messed up in my post above. THe words
should not have been included.
I’m not sure what percentage of Birthers are Christians, but I’d be surprised if it were very high. Jesus never produced any YouTube videos.
John, you’ve brought up an issue that is as potentially divisive as the birther movement. I respect what you’ve done with your analysis of the president’s birth certificate, and I often agree with what you say in your comments, but in regard to your comment above, I completely disagree. I don’t want to drag this thread into a topic unrelated to the subject at hand, I just want to register my disagreement to your argument and to the way you’ve framed it, especially to the question, “Do you like to be required by the government to fund behavior that you find immoral?” In the great scheme of things, I find that there are quite a number of things that our government funds that are more immoral than birth control pills. Moreover, this issue isn’t about what the government funds, but about what insurance plan should cover.
When conservatives decry slutty old men for wanting insurance companies to pay for their boner pills, then we may have something to talk about.
Can I get a refund for the % of my taxes that went to the Iraq war?
And that is why I hesitated to comment. I do not want to contribute turning this into a political discussion. That’s not what Dr. Conspiracy’s site is about.
I would like to note: I did not bring the issue up. My comment was simply a response to the following exchange:
>>>> Why do conservatives hate reproductive freedom, and call advocates “sluts”?
>>Because they’re control freaks. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear them approve of “honor killings”.
Conservatives are being caricatured here as people who “hate reproductive freedom,” who “call advocates ‘sluts,'” who are “control freaks,” and who just might “approve of ‘honor killings.'” It is difficult, as a conservative, to stand by and allow others to freely paint both myself and all who adhere to my particular basic world view, as monsters.
That’s all my comment was: A response to the same kind of demonization that birthers with which birthers attempt to paint all who disagree with them.
Again, I have no wish to go off into a political discussion on this particular forum, which is not about the philosophical differences I may have with others here, but is instead about the idiocy, foibles and invalid arguments of the birther movement — a matter on which I am sure a great many of us agree.
How about a refund of all the FEC money that goes to rethuglicans. We could go on and on and on.
We could, but I suggest this particular site is not the right one in which to air our political differences; or to attack each other on that basis. 😉
So when Rush called that student a slut, is he no longer a Conservative?
The point is, John, that many people have moral objections to all kinds of things. If we go down that road, then health insurance won’t pay for illness possibly due to smoking, drinking, not exercising, eating red meat and on and on. We will end up wiith health insurance that pays for nothing at all, because someone will have a moral oobjection to everything. Not mention objections to wars and anyy of 10,000 other things.
Bottom line: If you dig deep enough, we ALL pay for things we object to. That’s what living in a society, as opposed to a cave or a cabin in Montana, comes down to. I pay for things I object to and you like and you pay for things you object to and I like.
I find that a red herring. Do you think when Rush Limbaugh calls someone a slut, he’s speaking for every conservative in the country; and that every conservative in the country agrees with his having made that statement? If you do, then you would be sadly mistaken.
How would you like to have people take an example of bad behavior by someone who shares your basic political philosophy, or who have your particular skin color, or your particular gender, and then paint “Democrats,” or “liberals,” or “white people,” or “black people,” or “Hispanic people,” or “men,” or “women” — whichever of those categories you find yourself in — with that brush?
I don’t imagine that you would like that; and I am surprised to find that you appear, at least, to be making the argument for such bigotry here.
And as for your other argument, are you suggesting that you and I both should lose our right to protest paying for things that we have moral objections to?
I don’t think he is. However, I would expect strong condemnation from conservative leaders and I find those that have been made so far mealy-mouthed. Particularly those from the Republican Presidential candidates.
And yes, if some Democrat made wacko comments, I would expect strong action from the party. Let’s take the case of Cynthia McKinney, a former Democratic Congresswoman from Georgia who made “9/11 truther” statements. She was immediately dropped by the DNC who funded her primary challenger. Where is the action from the RNC regarding birthers and other wackos in their party? Will they fund a primary challenger for Sheriff Joe? I’ll believe it when I see it.
Of course not, but your right to protest implies my right to call your protest wrong-headed (and vice versa).
(forgive me for butting in)
Absolutely not.
In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to pay for social services like 911 for people who scream socialism is evil. We, the people, paying taxes to protect their lives and property seems unfair and ironic for those violently opposed to promoting the general welfare.
This is often a problem, and often on both sides of the aisle.
I wouldn’t think the RNC is involved in funding issues in a county sheriff’s race, but I don’t know how funding works.
I can tell you this: I see no support for birthers from Republican Party leaders at all. Do you?
Nonetheless… I used to think, as you probably feel about your own party or political persuasion, that conservatives stood firm on a solid bed of sanity. It’s distressing to me that a certain percentage of conservatives, in regard to the birther issues, seem to have lost their collective freakin’ minds.
Oh: and I appreciate the fact that you recognize that Cynthia McKinney is a lunatic.
That’s fair enough.
Gosh, this is refreshing. Talking about disagreements with someone who is a rational human being.
Seems a long time since I’ve done that.
John Woodman, I thought you’d like to know you’ve been outed as a liberal by a commenter on HuffPo. You see, he read all your other books.
Republican Georgia State Representative, Mark Hatfield, is the attorney for plaintiff Clayton County, Georgia GOP Chair, Carl Swensson in their quest to remove the “usurper”.
(AFAIK, no comments from the Georgia GOP party leaders.)
Today from Carl’s blog:
(excerpt) Attn: Governor Deal, SOS Brian Kemp, State Atty. Gen. Sam Olens
Re: Ballot fraud and criminal cover-up
Dear sirs,
The facts are now in, having been uncovered and disclosed by AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio at his March 1 press conference, and they speak to criminal activity I have been warning you about since before any of you took office. I am but one man in a State of millions but this man will not stop until justice prevails. Your minions, Judges Michael Malihi and Cynthia Wright have now done your bidding and paved the way for the Criminal in Chief to, once again, be fraudulently and illegally placed on the GA ballot. This constitutes aiding and abetting. This constitutes misprision of felony. This constitutes treason. There is no legal cover for your actions or lack thereof.
What more are you waiting for? A knock at your door by the authorities who must remove you from your seats of power? A full blown civil action where We the People converge, en masse, at the Gold Dome? What the hell are you waiting for?
I’m certain the recent announcement of all the Federal money pouring into this State just after the Malihi/Kemp ruling is no coincidence and many of us who watched this sequence of events unfold understand full well that this represents the selling out, by you, of this great State to the DC crowd. Best get your cut of it now and run as fast as you can to a sanctuary country because you are ultimately responsible for this nightmare. No more games or back room deals will be tolerated.
(source: http://riseupforamerica.com/)
I haven’t seen condemnation for the members of Congress (including removal from committee assignments) and the many state legislators (including leaders of state legislative bodies) who have espoused birther and birther-light sentiments. But the real test for me is Sheriff Joe. We are now 48 hours past him outing himself as full-throated birther and the silence is deafening. Where are Mitt, Rick, Newt, Boehner, etc.?
I don’t know whether the RNC or the Arizona Republican party funds Arpaio, I don’t see how it would be beyond the state party leadership’s ability to back a primary challenger as the Dems did with McKinney.
So, yes, I find the response of the Republicans as a party and their leadership to the birthers to be weak-kneed. With only a few exceptions, they are too affraid to come out and say, “They are crazy”. 3 words-how hard is that?
They have some powerful dog whistles.
Ah yes.
And which books were those? I forget.
Actually, I did write another book, which was available for a while on the internet as an ebook. It was a reworking of James Allen’s “As a Man Thinketh,” and had to do with how people could take responsibility for and change their own lives, beginning with changing their thoughts.
Hardly classic liberal fare. In any event, it’s not on the market at present because I would like to rework much of it, if I ever get around to it.
I have a draft of much of another book, unfinished, which is along very much the same lines, although much more story-oriented.
Whats his baseline for a centrist book, Mien Kampf?
Oh and I have no idea if John has written other books but theres no others listed on Amazon, maybe you should check it before stupidly trolling?
If I have any excuse to make for my fellow Republicans and conservatives, it is this.
Corsi and company, backed by many others, and even Donofrio and Apuzzo on the NBC side, have slung an awful lot of manure. It is very, very difficult for someone — particularly in a public capacity — to come out strongly against something liked by a certain percentage of their constituents unless 1) they are absolutely certain there’s nothing valid in it, and 2) they can win any PR war on it.
There is so much manure in the forgery truck that it took me personally THREE MONTHS, full-time equivalent, to sort through it all and really, truly, totally come to a clear and conclusive understanding that it was ALL just manure. It’s virtually impossible for most people to invest that much time into the issue.
I don’t think there’s as much manure on the NBC side, but even so, that’s a really big truck, too. It has taken me a total of about 9 months to process both truckloads — and I spent FAR, FAR more time on the issue than most people ever will.
Hopefully there are others who will use things that I and others have written to come to conclusions less painfully. For my part, I feel I’ve about done what I can do.
Is justlw a birther troller? I don’t bother to check where people are coming from. I assumed he was just someone remarking on some idiot making an idiot comment at another site.
John: I’m sorry, but I don’t buy your excuses for the elephant leaders. Not condemning the birthers is simple lack of leadership and courage. There are probably as many (maybe more) 9/11 truthers out there as birthers, but no Democratic leader has ever said it is anything.other than hogwash, pure and simple.
As for your work regarding the forgery allegations on the LFBC, I certainly respect the effort you have made. But let’s remember that a COLB was released in 2008 and that SHOULD have been the end of the matter. Why didn’t Boehner or McConnell order a COLB from their home state and hold it up next to a printout of the President’s and say, “Looks the same to me. Now can we talk about the issues”. That would have been leadership and courage.
We have agreed (I think) that the story surrounding a putatiive Kenyan birth is prima facie ridiculous. How much analysis do you or anyone else need to do to discount it? Frankly, analysis of the Corsi, Arpaio manure was pearls before swine.
No.
Sorry to JohnW if he was not trolling. I guess I have a thin trigger lately.
Unfortunately, yes: “Be Nice To Bigots – Republican leaders tiptoe around the smear campaign against Obama’s faith and citizenship.
The party that was supposed to stand up to President Obama can’t even stand up to its own fringe.”
Read on:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2011/02/be_nice_to_bigots.html
More from Slate: “That’s four straight interviews in which the country’s three top Republicans—the speaker of the House and the GOP leaders in each chamber—have refused to condemn the spreading of lies about Obama’s faith and citizenship. These three men are confident enough in the personhood of fetuses to support banning abortion. They’re confident enough in the efficacy and justice of the U.S. health care system to block funding of the Affordable Care Act. They’re confident enough in Wall Street, despite the recklessness and bailouts of the last three years, to press for repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. But ask them whether Obama is a Muslim or was born in the United States, and suddenly they’re too humble to impose their beliefs on others. They can only describe “the facts as I understand them.” They can only speak “for me.” They can only “listen to the American people,” not “tell them what to think.”
Read on:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2011/02/be_nice_to_bigots.2.html
Well, I agree that Republican leaders ought to address the issue and beat down the crazies.
The Republican Party decided to ride the horse of its nutty right wing, and is hard prssed to reject it. There are some, like Sen. Graham, who tell people that birther claims are just lies. Others, like Speaker Boehner, equivocate. They are playing to the nuts. I concur that they should stand up, say President Obama was born here and is eligibile to be President, and if you believe otherwise, you should find another party.
Now I regret to say that in my circle of friends more than a few spout that we don;t know enough about his background, or he’s really a Muslim, or his church is antiChristian stuff, and there’s a limit to how much one can swat down in a single evening.
I can see why a typical neo-conservative would mistake John Woodman for a Liberal.
He has both intelligence and integrity.
That used to be common among Conservatives. Nowadays, not so much. In fact, it is very hard to imagine what idelogical umbrella would cover borh him and, for instance, Joe Arpaio.
Well said! I 100% agree. That really is the issue in a nutshell.
“Look closely at the bottom of the date stamp. It shows “USPO” (for United States Post Office). The USPO became the United States Postal Service (USPS) in 1970. The Cold Case Posse’s theory that a “2008” USPO hand stamp was altered to make the image above is impossible: There are no “USPO” hand stamps from 2008 –The USPO ended in 1970!”
So if it is legit, why did his say USPO when stamped in 1980? By your logic, the USPO stamp would have been changed to USPS 10 years earlier. If you watched the video, you would have seen that all of the other examples of the Registration cards from1980 also had the USPO marking on them.
Someone else argued that they could use the stamp up until 1999, why waste a good stamp? I hope that was a joke. The year portion of the stamp was a 4 digit number, so the stamp could be used until we had to add a 5th digit to the year.
You really need to go back and try again.
Apparently those stamps lasted a long time. I believe there was a known example of one lasting until 1987.
I would like to see a source for that, though.
Although the USPO changed to USPS, the stamps were designed to work for many years, allowing one to advance the last two digits. As such, it is not much of a surprise that despite the change-over in 1970, many examples of USPO stamps all the way into he 1980’s exist. So far I have yet to see a 20xx USPO stamp.
The interesting part is that the ’80’ of the Obama stamp aligns quite well with the Bruce Henderson stamp, also in 1980 from a similar Hawaiian Post Office, sent a few days later. Note how the two applications are close in form numbers and registration numbers, once again undermining an argument of fraud.
The suggestion that a 2008 USPO stamp was used is somewhat of a poor suggestion since I venture to guess that few such stamps remained in existence at the millennium change (two first digits of stamp changed).
Our platypus friend assumes that the stamp had four changeable digits but I venture to speculate it may have had only 2.
The stamp might last a while, but there comes a point where it’s going to have to be replaced or where the guy in charge decides to retire it.
I’d be surprised if the original 19 wasn’t fixed. Most standard forms at the time would have had a 19__ in the year field for people to simply fill in the last two digits of the year. I remember personal checks that had that feature. Right now they typically have 20__, although my personal checks currently all have a straight line with no pre-filled digits for the year.
Sheriff Joe had another SSR from 1980 that also said USPO
I saw it posted in another place that a two digit year was acceptable, and that was why his only had the last two digits, the 80. This is an intentional attempt to mislead. Here is what is quoted to make that point:
“4.6 Mailings
4.6.1 Mailing Date Format
The mailing date in meter indicia must meet the format standards in this section. The year must be represented by all four digits or by the last two digits. Mailers may print the indicia directly onto mailpieces or onto separate labels or tape affixed to mailpieces. The mailing date format used in the indicia is also subject to the following conditions.”
This applies to postage that companies or individuals print on the envelopes themselves. This does not prove that it was the practice of the Postal Service to let individual Post Offices decide if they would use two or four digits. Even if individual Post Offices were able to decide on using two or four digits for the date, within that post office, the stamps would be uniform.
It would make no sense to order two different kinds of stamps. You would also have to order different year stamps. Some would need four digit dates, and some would need two digit dates. If they ordered two digit dates, the digits would be centered, just like they are on the four digit stamp.
We have seen examples from the same Hawaiian Post Office that Obama registered in that have a 4 digit stamp. It makes no sense that the same Post Office would order four and two digit stamps.
To claim that the first two digits fell off, or were worn down makes no sense. If it was missing or worn down, it would have been replaced. None of the other dates were missing the 19. What are the odds that there is a question about the authenticity of that document, and that is the one and only known case of this irregularity? There is definitely something suspect about that document.
Nobody is claiming that they ordered a two digit stamp. The only claim is that there was an issue with the stamp that meant the “19” that was supposed to be there either didn’t get properly inked or perhaps fell out.
Two problems Tony: You’re posting the same message in several threads. I believe that’s a no, no.
And, of course, the stamp on the draft registration form was not a “meter indicia”.
Other than that……………..
I think the “fell out” theory makes a lot of sense. Everyone knew in 1980 that the year started with “19.” Do you seriously think that every bit of equipment used by the US Post Office was always maintained in absolutely pristine condition? We know that the stamp in 1980 would’ve been at least 10 years old, and probably older than that. That particular stamp was well into the “aging” category.
Sometimes “good enough” is simply good enough.
On the other hand, do you really think that somebody doing a deliberate forgery of a selective service registration postmark — again, this apparently would’ve been back in the days of the Bush administration, which makes it very implausible to start with! — would’ve remembered to fake the “USPO” but would’ve created a suspicious-looking date stamp — which would’ve drawn FAR MORE attention than the USPO — by leaving off the “19”? I don’t.
And again, what would be the point anyway? Do you seriously think Obama would’ve risked a criminal conspiracy scandal which might very well cost him the presidency and his reputation for the rest of his life — especially since this was during the Bush administration — all for the sake of a stupid Selective Service registration nearly 30 years before — when there was no war on, no draft dodging even possible, and he had freely and publicly admitted to marijuana and cocaine use as a young man in his 1995 memoir, and that hadn’t even hurt him politically?
It just makes no sense. No sense whatsoever. Like ALL of the other birther theories, it requires you to believe “six impossible things (or at least, highly, highly, highly implausible ones) before breakfast.”
Oh, and as far as “What are the odds that there is a question about the authenticity of that document, and that is the one and only known case of this irregularity?” —
What are the odds that if a hundred people — or more — were to dig up every bit of information they could possibly dig up about you, from your birth to today, including all kinds of things like past associations, government records relating to your parents, postmarks on mail that you sent 30 years ago and the like, that a few of these dozens of hostile investigators could turn up something of which somebody could say… Hmmm… this looks suspicious…?
I don’t trust Obama. There are very few politicians that I really do trust. My own state senator comes to mind as an exception to that rule, largely because I had dinner with his mother some years ago, and she told me that with her son, what you see is absolutely what you get. I believe her. But beyond him, there are very few I would trust.
But all this crap about Obama’s Selective Service registration being forged and similar stuff — all of which I’ve checked out, by the way — is just ludicrous.
I actually learned something about myself this very day, which I had never known before but which is now part of the public record.
I learned that my parents’ divorce case, when I was 10 years old, was appealed to the Arkansas State Supreme Court, and a ruling handed down. That divorce case is now part of the records of the Arkansas Supreme Court. I am even personally mentioned in the syllabus, though not by name.
I never knew that until today. I knew they had gone to court, but I never knew until a few hours ago that the case was appealed to the state Supreme Court.
There are all kinds of things out there. You get a big enough army up (and all the birthers put together are quite an army), and it’s inevitable that you can find some things on anybody that you can question.
Intentional attempt to mislead… You of poor reading ability…
Let it be said however that given the offset of the two digits, it appears that it is a usual 4 digit stamp where the first two digits are poorly visible. Since the scan is a B&W scan, it could be that a vague 19 was rendered as white rather than black. Poor inking or missing digits would all explain this.
It’s such a minor issue in light of the fact that the document number is close to one sent in a few days later by Bruce Henderson, which was assigned at the same data as Obama’s a number close to Obama’s.
All the evidence shows that the information was properly received by the SSS.
The birthers must have a very high opinion of the government. All of the various agencies such as the USPS and the SSA are perfect and never make any errors.
And all typewriters and typists in 1961 were perfect as well, so it would have been impossible for a typed document to have two letters a little too close together…
Its obvious to me you did not review the information that Arapio men found. Dumb-as-a-rock yee are.
I’ll have you know I own a pet rock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_rock
Booga booga booga scary black man is sailing through to a massive victory in November! I’m looking forward to your enforced gay marriage/abortion/enrollment in the communist party.
OK, I provided details from the press conference and the book, and you didn’t.
Now, logically, which of us didn’t review the information? Did you write one of those vacuous book reviews over at Amazon too?
It’d be interesting in a minutiae-weenie way (and hey, isn’t that us?) to analyze the various existing samples and chart the ratio of “USPS” impressions observed vs. “USPO” over time.
I imagine it would show nearly 0% “USPS” in 1971, since the USPS only came into existence in July of that year. I also would predict it to be a very slow climb for a couple of years, accelerating as first the design for the new stamp was approved and implemented, older stamps were lost or finally discarded, new post offices were opened, and so on.
These stamps are mechanically simple — not much to go wrong with them. Lasting 10 years would be no trick at all.
I cannot see why it’s considered at all likely that a cabal capable of coming up with a usable 35-plus-year-old USPO stamp specific to Makiki Station, whether by acquiring the actual physical stamp (as the CCP asserts) or faking it, would be unable to also come up with or fake a “19”. And Doc has demonstrated elsewhere that all they would need to do so is an eBay account.
Orders of magnitude harder than making a “19” would be inserting both the form and its associated electronic data into the system, with serial numbers appropriate to the era. And that’s what this silly story requires.
Since you can’t even spell “Arpaio”, I doubt you reviewed anything at all, ever.
I kinda like ‘Arapio’. Snappy.
So how is this forgery debunked? The stamp is worn out? UH?????? The 80 is not where it should be. What wear does that?
The ink did not hit the stamp? UH????? The 80 is not where it is supposed to be. Does missing ink do that?
USPO ? That is as bad as the Hospital name malarkey from the birther side.
OH, this one is good. “They got $700 million, they can forge better than that.” Well, they didn’t. BTW, this card has a quirky DLN number, seems there are 3 of them.
Your confirmation bias is showing.
Your side was pushing Hospital Name brand malarkey? I hear that’s the best kind. Lovely shade of green, and guaranteed sterile!
Umm…. the 80 is exactly where it would be if the “19” did not impress. Try this.
1) Draw a circle.
2) Write the number 1980 in the middle, with the numbers of approximately equal width and so that they collectively take up the entire diameter of the circle.
3) Get some white-out and blank out the 1 and the 9.
Is it really that hard to figure out?
And for what purpose would a 47+ year old Barack Obama forge a Selective Service card?
I know! It’s like, where did they learn to forge? Mount St. Forgemore College of Craptastic Forgery? C’mon people! Jesus wants us to do better than this!!!!
Is this one of those date stamps that you rotate to get the right date? The ones I have seen have blanks in them. Maybe for this one the century and year were separate and maybe when the postal clerk rotated the date the century field rotated to a blank space. I doubt he thought it made any difference.
I’m sorry. Where did you show that the “80” is not where it is supposed to be? The position looks perfectly normal to me. I even rotated it and laid it over another example and it lined right up.
Just because some birther cold case of frozen feet posse says that it’s in the wrong position doesn’t mean that it is, any more than their saying you can’t buy the date slugs on the street means that’s true either. I found some on eBay.
Yes. I think that is another good possibility, I think.
Its been a while since I’ve seen a pica stamp and I don’t remember noticing if the year ‘scrolled’ in halfs. The slug sets that the Doc pictures has all four digits on one slug.
I just replayed the CCP “Selective Service” video and noticed something interesting.
At about 2:30 in, they show a closeup of Obama’s date stamp, compared to what they declare to be a “good” date stamp, also from Makiki Station.
Took a look at this “good” stamp. (The on-screen caption calls it a “date stamp reflecting what one would expect from an authentic USPO PIKA [sic] stamp used during the 80’s [sic] era.”)
It doesn’t say “HONOLULU” — it quite clearly says “HNOLULU“.
Like I always say: if you want evidence to contradict a birther theory, look no further than the birthers.
Here they’ve proven by example that it’s entirely possible — “authentic,” even — to have an image of a stamp where not all the characters are rendered.
Heh. Went to the YouTube video and added a comment mentioning the missing “O”. They deleted it. You’d almost think they weren’t looking for a debate on this.
This was TeaPartyPowerHour who did this? Mark Gillar? He assured me personally that he was committed to the truth first, agenda second.
Regarding Gillar, how much evidence would you like to the contrary? LOL!
I’m always interested in knowing evidence that would give me a better feel for whether someone is or is not consistent with their words.
Well, it’s a TeaPartyPowerHour video, and there wasn’t anything in my comment that I would think would anger the YouTube gods, so I have to assume they were the ones who deleted the comment.
I should have screenshotted the comment before it was deleted, but I just don’t think in those paranoid terms. Heck, I didn’t even know video owners *could* delete comments.
There’s one comment “marked as spam” making that argument. I just made another comment with similar content, let’s see how long that one stands. 😉
Since this is a this is a thread about Arpaio’s non-profit Posse hijinks, not Gillar, feel free to email me about interactions with him.
Ah yes, I see the comment marked as spam. Because, I guess, it’s selling something someone doesn’t want to buy.
In order to see that the comment still exists, I had to explicitly click on “See All”, a control I hadn’t even noticed before.
Finally: flagging a comment as spam is something done by viewers, not necessarily the video owner, so I withdraw my statement that TPPH/MG would be the most likely perpetrators of that. But I wonder how many viewers have to flag something as spam before it’s hidden.