Obama Releases long form birth certificate

[Andrew J.]

Wait wait, whats that about the birth certificate from Kenya with his footprint on it? Is that a joke?

It's an obvious forgery that Orly Taitz produced several months ago...unless there's another one they're talking about I'm not aware of.

[LadyTevar]

Sharon Guthrie, the legislative director for a Texas state representative backing a bill requiring proof of citizenship for presidential ballot access, told the website Slate.com that she was still suspicious.

"What they produced today ... still says certificate of live birth across the top," she said. "We want to see a 'birth certificate.' ... The one that we have that says 'birth certificate' is from Mombassa, Kenya, with his footprint on it. He has still not produced an American birth certificate."

You stupid fuckin' bitch, look at your own LongForm certificate, or ANY certificate on file in the 'great state of Texas' and you'll see EVERY SINGLE CERTIFICATE** is either a "Certificate of Live Birth", or a "Certificate of StillBirth". It has been that way since 1910s, when the first Certificates of Live Birth were handed out to the midwifes and doctors to fill out and send into the States for safe-keeping.

But goddammit, I'm beginning to wish these Birthers were all Certificates of StillBirths so we'd not have to listen to this BullShit.

**And Chocula, before you say a word, I work in the WV DHHR, Division of Vital Registration. I have worked with, handled, copied, filed and got the papercuts from Certificates of Live Births for the last 10 years. I am one of the five (5) ladies in the State with the authority to sign and certify Certificates of Live Births. So right now, *I* am the Authority on what is and isn't a Birth Certificate. Any Questions?

[Isolder74]

Wait wait, whats that about the birth certificate from Kenya with his footprint on it? Is that a joke?

It's an obvious forgery that Orly Taitz produced several months ago...unless there's another one they're talking about I'm not aware of.

That's the one. Isn't the irony of that one the fact that it was made as a prank to be so obviously fake just to see how willing they would be to take anything that might look like it was what they wanted to see.

[Count Chocula]

Do you have ANY evidence that Obama was "stonewalling" and "spending millions of dollars on blocking the release"? At all?

I did some more research and I stand corrected. Obama/OFA paid Perkins Coie $2.6 million in legal fees between Oct 2008 and Dec 2010, but that was for all expenses. Specific birth cert costs are not required by the SEC and are not reported. I feel "stonewalling" is an accurate description of OFA's and the DoJ's actions, and I think the stonewalling is justified! The whole "birther" argument started with Hillary Clinton's campaign staffers and mushroomed to ridiculous proportions. The idiots bringing suits have forced Obama to spend some money, and the DoJ to spend some time; but he has plenty of money and DoJ lawyers. Why give in now?

Dalton: you were right, and I was wrong, on the $$ spent.

Again:
Do you have ANY evidence that Obama actively fought the release of the long-form birth certificate? Instead of, you know, the stated policy of not releasing long-forms, which i explained in detail, being responsible for it not being released?

You also COMPLETELY ignored my point that the long-form doesn't contain any relevant information that it not contained in the short-form.

Again, show actual EVIDENCE.

I concede. In case there's any confusion on where I stand, I am not a "birther;" I really don't care about the differences between the short and long form, the guy was born in Hawaii. The whole issue is IMO a distraction that Obama could have used to discredit his opposition closer to the 2012 elections.

I'm just going through Count Chocula's derailment (and entry into the HoS) in motion.

Dalton argues against Count Chocula's incorrect claim about legal expenses.
Count Chocula responds with a deranged post that doesn't address this criticism in the slightest.
SancheztheWhaler point's out that Count Chocula sounds like a fuckwad.

and Chocula responds with:

Count Chocula wrote:
Way to address my argument, Sanchez! In your opinion, who came out ahead: Trump or Obama?

... which has nothing to do with Dalton's post.

Okay I've conceded that. Oh, you're predicting another HoS for me? Fuck you.

Dalton criticized my (admittedly offhand, corrected after research) statement about monies spent. He said fuck and all about whether or not it was a good move, and whether or not Obama looks like a pussy (paraphrasing) for giving in after Trump opened his mouth. His prior expenditures are actually subordinate to the rest of my posts.

@ dalton: hey shitfart, what the fuck difference does it make WHY Big Barry O spent the dough?

Because you lied. You made an incorrect claim, I called you on it, and now you say that it doesn't make a difference.

It does.

It means that you are a lying sack of shit and you can't back up your bullshit, debunked claim, so you'll just go ahead and argue about something else that I didn't dispute.

Holy shit. Does this mean that, aside from calling me on the money spent, you agree with my amateur analysis? That can't be right...I must be missing something.

**And Chocula, before you say a word, I work in the WV DHHR, Division of Vital Registration. I have worked with, handled, copied, filed and got the papercuts from Certificates of Live Births for the last 10 years. I am one of the five (5) ladies in the State with the authority to sign and certify Certificates of Live Births. So right now, *I* am the Authority on what is and isn't a Birth Certificate. Any Questions?

One question: why do you think I'm a "birther?" My dispute is regarding Obama's (poor) strategy and timing, not his citizenship.

[Dalton]

Of all the people who were crowing for the birth certificate, Trump was the first really serious potential 2012 contender. Obama's production of the birth certificate took a potential GOP campaign tactic out of play, and formally announcing it during Trump's own news conference was a parting bitchslap to he of the fleeing hair. Thus, Trump left it dangling with the weak "make sure it's real" argument and deftly replaced it with something else (questions about his academic cred). However, I think they miscalculated Trump's ability to spin this slapdown into a huge PR victory for himself.

[Count Chocula]

I agree on Trump being the first serious opposition. Huckabee? Hell no. Newt? Please. Herman Cain? Now, he's a contender. Romney? Shit, may as well vote for Obama. In my opinion, it would have been smarter for Obama and his staff to sit back, see if Trump got the nod, THEN lay out the long form. It would have been as damaging to Trump's campaign as that picture of Dukakis in a tank.

[SirNitram]

Please; Trump isn't gonna be a real contender. He'd have to reveal his financials. He's got a lawsuit against someone who apparently researched his net worth. Plus, this gem:

Trump: My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with the markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try.

Ceresney: Let me just understand that a little. You said your net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings?

Trump: Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day ...

Throw in his repeated bankruptcies and dabbling in the SUPER-LEFTIST-OMG realms of things like universal healthcare, and the GOP will not vote for him. I project this as a PR stunt for his flagging 'reality' show.

[Dalton]

I agree on Trump being the first serious opposition. Huckabee? Hell no. Newt? Please. Herman Cain? Now, he's a contender. Romney? Shit, may as well vote for Obama. In my opinion, it would have been smarter for Obama and his staff to sit back, see if Trump got the nod, THEN lay out the long form. It would have been as damaging to Trump's campaign as that picture of Dukakis in a tank.

None of those other potentials are even pursuing the birther issue, recognizing it as damaging to their image. Trump doesn't give a shit since he's a reality TV star and thus on the same level as Snooki.

[Count Chocula]

Holy cow, Nitram and I agree for once. I think the Moon just shed its crust and is now a bronze-colored sphere with a dragon the size of Montana across its bow.

The Apprentice is in its seventh year. That's a pretty good run. Trump should call this season as the last and just go count his money. As for him getting the Repub nomination? Well, he's scotched that now with his f-bomb speech. Oops.

[Dominus Atheos]

With Drudge Report's Help, Birthers Latch Onto Phony Forgery Theory

In a predictable turn, conspiracy theorists are now rallying behind a bogus claim that President Obama's long form birth certificate is a Photoshopped forgery -- with a huge helping hand from one of conservative media's biggest names.

The fringe theory's rapid spread within hours of the certificate's release presents almost a perfect example of one of the White House's justifications for taking on the birther issue -- namely, that thanks to the internet, conspiracy theories can migrate quickly from the fringe and into the mainstream if left unchecked.

In this case, it took only hours. The forgery claim appeared to have first started as an offbeat blog post from an Atlanta-based art director at an ad firm, Bryan Michael Nixon, less than two hours after Obama's statement. By the end of the day it had become a headline on Drudge Report, one of the single most trafficked news sites on the internet. The debunked forgery revelation drew thousands of comments on messageboards, migrated to birther and truther conspiracy guru Alex Jones' site, while a video explanation was viewed over 160,000 times on YouTube.

The basis for the forgery claim lay in a basic misunderstanding of how computer image formats work. Nixon observed in his post that the PDF file of Obama's long form birth certificate could be broken down into "layers," including a background and separate foreground text. "This in no way proves that anything on it is fake, but only that the document from the WH was composed of multiple elements," he wrote. "How to interpret it is up to the viewer."

Of course, viewers who didn't let President Obama's short form birth certificate derail their birther fantasies back in 2008 interpreted it exactly as you'd expect, spreading the "layering" claim on sites like conservative messageboard FreeRepublic as proof it was faked.

In fact, the effect was not a sign of foul play at all, but a common attribute of PDF files containing text as an image. On many PDFs, a feature called OCR (optical character recognition) recognizes the letters in the image and separates them into their own layer. This explains why you're able to highlight and copy raw text from some PDF files even though it's actually not a word processing document.

The conservative news site National Review Online received so many e-mails from their readers on the "layer" theory that they looked into it and issued their own thorough debunking. To demonstrate that the long form release was nothing unusual, NRO scanned a copy of their own magazine cover into a PDF file, easily recreating the same layer effect in Adobe Illustrator.

As TPM has documented, birthers have wasted no time in promoting alternate theories undermining the president's legitimacy since the release of the long form birth certificate.

[Lord MJ]

Just wondering, not that I'm suggesting Obama does this, but now given the fact that he has released his birth certificate and the birthers are saying that it's fake, couldn't the accusation that the birth certificate is fake constitute slander and the birthers can be sued accordingly?

I know there is the whole public figure exception, but I would hope that there is some recourse to saying and publicizing that the birth certificate is fake without any evidence at all to back that accusation up.

[bobalot]

The Birthers and Trump are questioning Obama's academic record and now want Obama to release his transcript.

(NEWSER) – Move over birthers, here come the "graders." President Obama was a "terrible" student who didn't deserve to get into the Ivy League universities he attended, Donald Trump suggests in an interview with AP. "I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Trump asked. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records."

Obama—who, in his memoir Dreams From My Father, suggested that he hadn't always been the strongest student—graduated from Columbia University and Harvard University Law School, where he became the the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. His 2008 campaign did not release his college transcripts. "I have friends who have smart sons with great marks, great boards, great everything and they can't get into Harvard," Trump said. "We don't know a thing about this guy. There are a lot of questions that are unanswered about our president." (Click for more deep thoughts, compliments of Donald Trump.)

I think this can be translated to: "How did this nigger get into Harvard?"

[FSTargetDrone]

The Birthers and Trump are questioning Obama's academic record and now want Obama to release his transcript.

And if the academic transcripts are released, they will ask for something else. His driving record, perhaps. Or they will ask when he stopped hitting his wife. And on and on and on.

[bobalot]

The Birthers and Trump are questioning Obama's academic record and now want Obama to release his transcript.

And if the academic transcripts are released, they will ask for something else. His driving record, perhaps. Or they will ask when he stopped hitting his wife. And on and on and on.

And no doubt there will be legions of morons in media and society who claim the reasonable thing to do is simply give in to such stupidity.

After each capitulation, douchenozzles will be crowing in delight in the lowering of social discourse. Each capitulation will be heralded as a triumph for those who use outright lies, smears and race baiting. It will be complemented as "smart politics" rather than the unintelligent disgusting bullshit it really is.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Just wondering, not that I'm suggesting Obama does this, but now given the fact that he has released his birth certificate and the birthers are saying that it's fake, couldn't the accusation that the birth certificate is fake constitute slander and the birthers can be sued accordingly?

I know there is the whole public figure exception, but I would hope that there is some recourse to saying and publicizing that the birth certificate is fake without any evidence at all to back that accusation up.

But they aren't saying it's fake. They're saying they need to make sure it's real, that they have doubts about it's authenticity. Semantics to weasel their way around any actual responsibility for their words.

[mr friendly guy]

Obama fires back at Trump in a manner befitting the Donald

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has exercised his revenge after weeks of attacks from his would-be Republican challenger Donald Trump, joking that the billionaire businessman could bring change to the White House, transforming it from a stately mansion into a tacky casino with a whirlpool in the garden.

With Mr Trump in attendance, Mr Obama used the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner to mock the reality TV star's presidential ambitions.

The President said Mr Trump has shown the acumen of a future president, from firing Gary Busey on a recent episode of Celebrity Apprentice to focusing so much time on conspiracy theories about Mr Obama's birthplace.

After a week when Mr Obama released his long-form Hawaii birth certificate, he said Mr Trump could now focus on the serious issues, from whether the moon landing actually happened to "where are Biggie and Tupac?"

"No-one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than 'the Donald,'" Mr Obama said, referring to Mr Trump's claims the same day that he was responsible for solving the issue.

For Mr Trump's decision to fire actor Gary Busey instead of rock singer Meat Loaf from his TV show earlier this month, Mr Obama quipped: "These are the types of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir."

Mr Trump chuckled at some of the earlier jokes, but was clearly less amused as comedian Seth Meyers picked up where Mr Obama left off.

"Donald Trump often talks about running as a Republican, which is surprising," said the Saturday Night Live actor, entrusted with providing some of the comedy for the evening.

"I just assumed he was running as a joke."

Mr Trump stared icily at Meyers as he continued to criticise the real estate tycoon.

The two men found themselves in the same room after an intense week of attacks from Mr Trump, who has piggybacked on the birther conspiracies and even Mr Obama's refusal to release his university grades to raise the profile of his possible presidential bid.

And the birth certificate was clearly the key punchline for the evening, which typically offers the president a chance to show off his humorous side and a town consumed by politics and partisanship to enjoy a light-hearted affair.

[Bluewolf]

The event in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YGITlxfT6s#t=12m4s

If someone can embed the video properly (I am not sure how it's done) I'd be happy.

[Sea Skimmer]

My god, now our illegal Kenyan president has issued illegal orders to murder Osama Bin Laden; a whole new generation of bullshit will be spawned by this. Obama caused 9/11 as part of his African Zionist 10 year plot to rule America as King!

[Havok]

I said this in the Osama Dead thread, but it is pretty relevant here.

Speaking of politicizing this event... it's interesting, now that the security meeting timeline has been given, that President Obama chose to release his birth certificate just before this operation.

Kinda like, "Yes, I am an American, and this is how an American does things."

Maybe not the most blatant political move, but there had to be some forethought into the timing.

[bobalot]

I said this in the Osama Dead thread, but it is pretty relevant here.

Speaking of politicizing this event... it's interesting, now that the security meeting timeline has been given, that President Obama chose to release his birth certificate just before this operation.

Kinda like, "Yes, I am an American, and this is how an American does things."

Maybe not the most blatant political move, but there had to be some forethought into the timing.

But....but........but don' you see?! Who do you think came out on top? I have it on reliable sources that it was Trump.

[J]

Not that I believe one iota of birther bullshit, but is what they say about the PDF having layers true? Was this document purely a straight-up scan? Because if it's been altered, if even to enhance it, then Obama just handed the Birthers an early Christmas present.

With the help of a co-worker I am able to confirm that the PDF does indeed have layers. There's also a very high probability that it wasn't a straight scan and it was altered in some way at some point for whatever reason; the letters on the left are oddly aligned. I've confirmed this on the copy I downloaded.

The birthers are having a field day.

[Big Phil]

The birthers aren't having shit... this issue is dead and put to rest, and the only people still paying attention to it are the 30% teabagger idiots who think Obama is a Nazi fascist communist muslim.

[FSTargetDrone]

The birthers are having a field day.

Let them. Such people see conspiracies everywhere, no matter the evidence against them.

[madd0ct0r]

, that's exactly the kind of misalignment I'd expect when photocopying something with a spine - eg a textbook or a folder.

looking at website you linked too - 1. The words MALE and KAPIOLANI are both on a slant - the line drawn under them is wrong.

secondly, the thing was written (twice, at least) on a god-dam typewriter. I've rebuilt those before, letters are always at slightly different heights, so 'curvature' can be introduced just by having a certain sequence of letters. Type the same word backwards and it'd curve the opposite way. It's much more common for the 'curvature' to just be a wiggly line though.
Your website doesn't seem to realise how forms were done - the blank one was printed en-masse and then fed through a typewriter for the details to be typed in. I'd be suspicious if the two parts did align.

thirdly - you also ignore the fact that paper can stretch or distort - that's why engineers are not allowed to take measurements off drawings using a ruler, it simply isn't accurate enough.

fourthly- He's the president of the USA. Why do you think they'd release a forgery with obvious mistakes in it?

I'm reading the rest of the linked stuff now, the grey scale vs binary scan is an interesting thing, but I'd nee to confirm it myself. I've also seen similar results on old bridge drawings that definitely weren't faked.

[folti78]

My guess for the layers in the PDF, is that the PDF creating software(Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContext) tried to be too smart for it's own good(or the person doing the PDF creating from scan is too ignorant/indifferent to change the setup) and tried to OCR and convert as much of the scanned pixmap image to PDF's own vector graphics format to save space and processing time. This results in multiple layers, one containing the stripped down bitmap (dumped for you), and the other(s) containing the vector graphics on top of it.

EDIT: Looking into the raw PDF, it looks like that the software broke up the initial image into multiple ones for it's own reasons too. That's all I see but I don't know enough about the inner workings of PDF's and software to create them.