"Original birth certificate"

There are (at least) two very different things being called an “original birth certificate.” It’s important to keep the meaning straight in context.

The seminal article on Barack Obamas’ birth certificate is probably the 2008 piece titled “Born in the USA” at FactCheck.org. They write:

FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate.

They photographed the state-issued paper certificate from Hawaii, with Registrar Alvin Onaka’s signature stamp, the physical impressed seal of the State of Hawaii, and printed on official state security paper; FactCheck didn’t look at a photocopy, or an image on the Internet -- they looked at an “original birth certificate.” However, the document they photocopied didn’t exist before 2007 when the State of Hawaii issued it and in that sense it’s hardly “original.”

In the vital records community, what FactCheck photographed would be called a “certified copy.” The US Department of State uses similar less-ambiguous language in its passport requirements: “certified birth certificate issued by the city, county or state” which they further describe as:

A certified birth certificate has a registrar's raised, embossed, impressed or multicolored seal, registrar's signature, and the date the certificate was filed with the registrar's office, which must be within 1 year of your birth.

A certified copy has to be a certified copy of something, and that something is more accurately described as an “original birth certificate,” something that in times past was a paper document filled out by someone who witnessed the birth, usually a physician, and usually submitted to a jurisdiction by a hospital. The jurisdiction numbered the certificate and if it met certain quality standards,added it to their official file of births within the jurisdiction.  (This is further confused by some hospitals issuing souvenir birth certificates directly to parents, documents with little legal significance except as secondary evidence in the absence of a real certified copy.)

When Birthers demanded (between June of 2008 and April of 2011) to see Barack Obama’s “original birth certificate” they meant a “certified photocopy of Barack Obama’s original hospital-signed birth certificate.”

The difference between a true original and a certified copy becomes important in dealing with birther fly-speck analysis of birth certificate images. Original birth certificates are registered, not certified. They are not generally on security paper, and they do not have seals on them. Stamps and seals are certifying attributes used to certify the copy and security paper is used for such copies to prevent alteration and forgery of the certified copy. There is no concern over unauthorized alteration within a jurisdiction’s files. A moment’s reflection should make it obvious that original certificates in the file are not on security paper, the whole purpose of security paper being to make it hard to copy.

After the April 2011 press conference where Barack Obama presented his certified birth certificate (and put an image of it on the White House web site), birthers use the term “original birth certificate” to mean the paper document residing at the Department of Health in Hawaii. Birthers have moved the goal posts two or three times without changing the words, only the meaning.

My advice to the birthers

I’m not a real doctor, but I am going to offer some advice to the birthers on your health.

This article is prompted by a disturbing report on deaths in the United States. Like most developing countries, Americans are becoming more healthy and their life span is increasing. It’s not the same improvement across all ethnic groups, genders and education levels, but for all groups there is steady improvement, except for one, middle-aged white  non-Hispanics, especially men with less education. For that group the death rate is increasing (even though deaths from smoking are declining). Here’s the shocking graphic:

These guys are killing themselves through alcohol and drug poisoning, liver disease, and literally killing themselves by suicide!

I talked to my pastor about this and he confirmed from his own experience how stressed this group feels, especially the stress of finding a job when lacking a college diploma, and that they feel disadvantaged as non-white workers enter the work force in increasing numbers.

I address this article to birthers because you are part of the demographic that is killing themselves. (The caption on the chart is altered; the original said “non-Hispanic white” rather than “birthers,” but these are largely who the birthers are, plus older persons, whose death rates are higher anyway.)

I don’t have simple answers for your real problems, but I can tell you that self-medication with alcohol and drugs just makes things worse. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Heaven knows that I would like to see fewer birthers in the world, but I want that change to come about through reason and information—I don’t want you dead. So for what they’re worth, here are my suggestions:

1. Avoid alcohol consumption to excess. If your friends are telling you that you have an alcohol problem, talk to a counselor to find out if they’re right.
2. If you have thoughts of suicide, contact a suicide prevention hotline or a mental health professional. In the US call 1 (800) 273-8255.
3. Limit your time on the Internet, particularly on web sites that increase your anxiety level, and make you feel afraid.
4. Block Fox News from your TV channel list.
5. Get out more, plan family outings, visit the park and breathe some fresh air.
6. Join a service organization and enjoy the feeling of helping someone worse off than you are.

I don’t have an answer for your economic problems, except to suggest that you vote Democratic. Republicans are the party trying to dismantle what there is of a social safety net, the ones who don’t want you to be able to afford college, and want you do go bankrupt with medical expenses, and who want you to be unable to earn a living wage if you do get a job.

More BS

Barry Soetoro, Esq., the Gerbilmeister™ at Birther Report™ has a new interview, continuing his total BS theories that these mass shooting and bombing incidents you hear about in the news (Boston Marathon bombing, Sandy Hook and Charleston shootings) are fake—political theater to affect public opinion on the 2nd Amendment. The general approach is to find something they don’t understand in an image, or take a misstatement, and from there jump to the absurd conclusion that the events themselves were contrived and fake. The story is that the victims are actors, and are alive and well. In the real world, people are connected by family, friends, co-workers, and they don’t just pretend to die en masse.
Conspiracy theorists are erroneously labeling these purported fakes as “false flag operations,” but that is a misuse of the term. False flag refers to a real event wrongly attributed.
Now Soetoro tells Mike Shoesmith, that his fake violence stories fit in with more general birther claims that Barack Obama’s identity is equally fake. The CIA is behind it all, and Obama himself will disappear like the shooting victims. Some people seem to actually believe this BS.

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  Note: BSE appears to have deleted all of his gerbil images.

Dr. Deb attacks this site and its author

One of the more unpleasant commenters at Birther Report™ set a new personal best in bigotry yesterday. Dr. Deb [surname withheld] who goes by the internally-redundant screen name drdebdrdeb, commented:

When I read, "We read Birther Report so you don't have to" it told me ALL I EVER needed to know about you.
You are EVIL to the CORE.
The Sheeple don't need to check the facts because YOU do it for them.
Just like Communism. You SHALL NOT think for yourself.
I hope they are paying you a lot to spy on Americans.
You will need this money soon.

Apparently Dr. Deb needed to know very little about me to conclude that I am “EVIL to the CORE.” In fact, it appears that she needs to know nothing about me to come up with her extreme opinion, since she appears not to even understand the site’s tag line.
Gerbil Report™ is a spoof of Birther Report (I thought it would be obvious). The tag line is inspired by the NewsHounds.us web site, whose tag line is “We watch Fox so you don’t have to.”

Only a brain-dead literalist (or maybe a poorly written computer program) would conclude that this site’s tag line was meant to dissuade people from reading Birther Report. I just have to shake my head over how clueless Dr. Deb is and how she grasps a straw to justify defaming someone. Maybe the College of Education has lower standards.

Birther witness list

Melendres v. Arpaio (2007) is a federal lawsuit filed to stop the practice of racial profiling by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. The Court found that there was racial profiling and issued orders to end the practice. Interested readers can follow the history of that case at “What’s Your Evidence”.

The Court’s orders were not fully carried out, racial profiling continued, and federal judge G. Murray Snow ordered hearings on whether Sheriff Arpaio was in contempt of court. Sheriff Arpaio in an attempt to forestall a hearing admitted being in contempt and offered to pay money to settle the issue, but that didn’t work out.

The hearing was held and Judge Snow asked a few probing questions and then it hit the fan. Sheriff Arpaio admitted paying a Seattle software designer named Dennis Montgomery, widely reported to have sold bogus software to the government for detecting terrorist messages, to help him get dirt on the judge. That’s not how Arpaio couched what happened, but it is surely how it looks in some emails that the Court obtained from the Sheriff’s Office--and therein lies the birther angle. The participants in that email chain included Mike Zullo, head of Arpaio’s birther posse, and noted birther attorney Larry Klayman. Other information in the emails indicate that Montgomery was the source of the universe-shattering investigation that the Cold Case Posse has been talking about for a couple of years.

One cannot escape the question of whether Sheriff Arpaio lied in testimony last April when he said that Judge Snow was not individually targeted in what the Sheriff’s Office came to call “The Seattle Operation.” Charts and tables received by Arpaio from Montgomery appear to be very much about targeting the judge. Since Mike Zullo and Larry Klayman were knowledgeable about who was targeting whom, having participated in email exchanges on the subject, it seems extremely likely that these two will appear in federal court to answer questions. Judge Snow yesterday suggested that Klayman could be a witness.

I doubt much will come out about the birther side of the Seattle Operation because it’s not relevant. Still, strange twists do happen sometimes.

County raises taxes to pay Arpaio's legal bills

You can can spin it any way you want, but Maricopa County is planning to increase property taxes to the tune of $20,000,000 next year, reports station KJZZ in Phoenix. At the same time they have set apart $23,000,000 to pay for expenses in the law suit against Joe Arpaio for racial profiling. Obviously if they didn't have to pay for Sheriff Joe's misconduct, they would have the $20 million, and wouldn't have to raise taxes.

Joe Arpaio: Misprision of felony

"Misprision of felony" is one of those shiny objects the birthers discovered a few years back. The concept is knowing about a felony and not reporting it. Douglas Vogt's court action in Washington State was framed as a report of his belief that a felony was committed in regard to President Obama's birth certificate, and his desire to obtain a certification from the court that he wasn't guilty of hiding it.

Birthers aimed misprision at their opponents and members of Congress, saying that they knew Obama had forged his birth certificate and were covering it up.

Under federal law, "misprision of felony" is codified in 18 U.S. Code § 4, which says:

Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

They want the Obots dragged away and hung for this crime (or perhaps for the more severe "misprision of treason"). The reason this is nonsense is that the opponents of birthers do not believe that there is any felony, nor that they have any information indicating the commission of a crime. The courts have ruled that in order to be guilty of misprision of felony, a person must actively cover up the felony. Anti-birthers widely discuss birther claims, and nothing is covered up by anybody. Arguing that someone is wrong is not "covering up."

However, let's consider another possible charge of misprision of felony, this time on the birther side, and in particular against Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The felony is possession of classified documents, codified as 18 U.S. Code § 1924 - Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. According to news reports, Dennis Montgomery came to Sheriff Arpaio and stated that he had made copies of data developed by him under contract with the CIA. The very existence of this material was classified. Montgomery then offered to mine the data for Arpaio for money.

Sheriff Arpaio paid Montgomery for information, and did not inform the US Attorney or the CIA of Montgomery's representations. Further, Sheriff Arpaio assigned Montgomery a confidential informant number, and instituted procedures whereby even people in his own department were unaware of possible felonious activity by Montgomery. Arpaio knew of crimes Montgomery claimed to have committed, and actively participated in keeping it secret. That sounds like misprision of felony to me and I am not the only one thinking this. Phoenix New Times Reporter Stephen Lemons, somewhat of an expert on the misdeeds of Joe Arpaio, raised the issue (after this article was initially published) based on a discussion with former U. S. Attorney for Arizona, Paul Charlton:

Charlton offers a couple of possible federal statutes that could apply, including 18 USC 371, conspiracy “to commit any offense against” the U.S. government. 

“Even if the information is not classified, it is still conspiracy,” Charlton says.
“Ask any narco who is currently in prison for conspiracy to transport, sell, or buy cocaine when in fact there was no cocaine, only a DEA agent pretending to deal in cocaine.” 

Then there is 18 USC 4, which has the rather exotic title “misprision of a felony.”
Charlton says this would entail Arpaio’s not alerting, say, the FBI upon learning that someone wanted to sell him classified information.