Lucas Smith is Back

Back in July, I helped expose Lucas Smith, the BS artist who was auctioning on eBay a supposed Kenyan birth certificate for Obama. Smith disappeared for a while, but reemerged in mid-August in a series of WorldNetDaily articles. Amusingly, WND has simultaneously run headlining articles publicizing Smith's claims alongside separate articles declaring that his claims are bogus. Thus, they position themselves to help spread lies and falsehoods while positioning themselves to be able to deny any responsibility for spreading those same lies and falsehoods.

Anyhow, after releasing a couple of incredibly poorly shot videos, Smith has submitted an unsworn declaration in Orly's latest case of Barnett v. Obama. It's not an affidavit, because it is neither sworn nor notarized, but it's a form of federal declaration that is given equal consideration to an affidavit.

So let's consider some of the things Smith as to say in this declaration:

1. My name is Lucas Daniel Smith. I am over 18 years old, am of sound mind and free of any mental disease or psychological impairment of any kind or condition.

2. I am a citizen of the United States of America, I am 29 years old and I was born and raised in the state of Iowa.

Given that Orly is involved with this declaration, it's not terribly surprising that its content is already odd. Including "born and raised" information in a declaration is terribly irrelevant to the subject at hand. On the other hand, not including any information about where Mr. Smith can presently be found is an atypical omission for a declaration of this type. The court, after all, has no clue who "Lucas Daniel Smith" is, or how to locate him.

4. On February 19, 2009 I visited the Coast General hospital in Mombasa, Kenya.

In contrast to this claim in the declaration, back in late June/early July, Smith said "This spring I traveled through Kenya and it's capital Nairobi." Now instead of "this spring," he says he was in Kenya in February.

5. I visited the hospital accompanied by one more person, a natural born citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly known as “Zaire” and before independence as the “Belgian Congo”).

I see two things in this item worth noting, one questionable, and one just odd. The odd one is the inclusion of the political history of the Congo. Why that belongs in the declaration is beyond me; it's as relevant as the state of Smith's birth.

The other is the mention of Smith's associate, a "natural born citizen" (funny how that phrase makes it in) of the Congo. Based on previous postings by Smith, that person is "Andylenny." Here is a photo of Smith (left) and Andylenny (right):



I don't know the man, and I've never seen him in person, but "Andylenny," to me, looks hardly more like a Congolese citizen than I do. And I have five bucks that says the airport in that photo isn't even on the same continent as Kenya.

6. I traveled to Kenya and Mombasa in particular with the intent to obtain the original birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama, as I was told previously that it was on file in the hospital and under seal, due to the fact that the prime minister of Kenya Raela Odinga is Barack Hussein Obama's cousin.

A lot to unpack here:

First, there's the matter of Smith's intent. Here he claims he went to Kenya intending to get the birth certificate, having been told previously it was at a Mombasa hospital. Back in June, Smith said that he was in Kenya simply on travel, and that he first started hearing talk about a Kenyan birth certificate when he was already in Kenya.

Second, Smith says he was "told previously" that there was a birth certificate on file with the hospital. Back in June all he said that was he "delved and found" that a birth certificate was on file at the hospital. No substantive difference, but Smith's source both times remains unstated. If he learned it by calling the hospital or contacting the state, you think he'd say so. But given his subsequent claim that he had to pay off a military official to get at the physical document, why would the hospital or the state be so open on the phone? On the other hand, who else in Nairobi would even be able to tell him decisively that he should make a 200+ mile trip to Mombasa? And why is that information not relevant to share while the history of Congo's name-changes is?

Third, Smith repeats the outright lie that Obama and Odinga are cousins. Putting a proven false statement in a court declaration isn't very smart, and it certainly doesn't encourage the reader to trust all of his less-verifiable claims.

7. I had to pay a cash “consideration” to a Kenyan military officer on duty to look the other way, while I obtained the copy of the birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama.

8. The copy was signed by the hospital administrator.

9. The copy contain the embossed seal.

Kenya had a military officer in the hospital? In the records office? One that he simply slipped a few bucks, which not only allowed him to look at the records, or photograph them, but to walk away with a sealed document that was stamped and signed by the hospital administrator? Seriously?

Then there's the document itself:



There are some aspects of the document I find odd and curious (e.g., the lack of a birthday for Barack Sr.; the complete lack of a residence line for the father; ), but nothing that I can firmly state is hard evidence that it's a fake. But one feature stands out to me as the strongest evidence of fakery: the seal. Not only is it not a government seal for either Kenya or Mombasa, but it's terribly generic. It just says "SEAL" in the center, as though it was a bottom-level embossed sealmaker, bought from an office supplies dealer for about $25.

All in all, nothing totally concrete, but we have a combination of questionable and unsupported assertions along with some statements that are rather inconsistent with claims that Smith himself has previously made. Above I said that I'd put five bucks on the line that the photo of Smith and Andylenny wasn't taken in Kenya. I'd put another five bucks on the line to say that Smith hasn't so much as stepped foot in Kenya in 2009.

Barack O'Bama

When Joe Biden is referred to as being "Irish Catholic", it's commonly understood that this means he comes from an Irish ethnic background. That his ancestors were Irish, not that Biden himself is from Ireland. Because that would be silly.

But let a reporter covering Barack Obama's visit to Ghana casually refer to the President as "Kenyan" when speaking with a Ghanan citizen, and WorldNetDaily's reaction is, predictably, 'MSNBC reports that Obama was born in Kenya!!!'

English must be a second language for Birthers. And I have to assume their first language is Swiss, which would explain their obsession with de Vattel.

There's a Birther Suckered Every Minute

So after having his previous five auctions pulled, Lucas Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa posted a sixth eBay auction on the evening of July 2. I don't know if he'd seen this blog, but he'd definitely seen the fallout on FreeRepublic:

So now eBay removes my listing for selling a picture? That doesn't sound bizarre to anyone? And I read that people are finding information about Smith posted on the internet which supposedly discredits him? Smith is a scammer? Give me a break.

And now when we go to log into InspectorSmith's Youtube account our password is not recognized. All this for a scam, huh, a good laugh?

Just the other day I noted that I was thankful for freerepublic dot com. Reminds me of a bunch off lukewarm turncoats. Change your opinion every time that the wind blows in a different direction. Here's another quote, “Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.” - Alexander Hamilton. And what, what will be your opinion tomorrow? "O" was born in the USA? Make up your minds, have a little backbone.

I happened to stumble across the auction less than ten minutes after it was posted, and although I promptly reported it to eBay (with a link to my last post attached for good measure). Yet it's still there, four days later. And no, I'm not going to link to it.

At first, I wondered why eBay wasn't acting this time. Then I realized why: Lucas isn't breaking the rules this time. In fact, while I rather doubt this was his plan from the start, he's ended up engineering quite the ingenious little scam here.

Here's the relevant parts of the auction listing, stating exactly what the auction is for:

Autographed photo of Smith and Andylenny, abroad. In airport.



There won't be anymore eBay auctions for documents, stories or dissertations.

The photo in this listing is up for auction. On the left is Smith and on the right is Andylenny. This photo will be signed by Smith, as Smith. This will be the only autographed photo put up for auction. One auction, one winning bidder, one photo. No more. There wont be duplicate photos or other photos for auction later. (Though I might try a relist if eBay kicks this auction off before enough people have had the chance to see this photo.)

You are welcome to copy and paste, or save, the digital photo in this listing. This auction is not so much for $$$ gain. It's meant to give a face or two to the O proof story. If anyone comes forward with our O proof other than one of the two faces that you see in this auction then you'll know that it wasn't the proof offered in our five previous auctions. Also this picture will vouch for the credibility of the soon coming Youtube video. If you don't see one of the two faces that you see in this auction then you'll know that it's not our Youtube video.

For the record I want to state that this auction is for an autographed photo of Smith and Andylenny. Signed by Smith, as Smith. You are not bidding on anything other than that, there will be no accompanying documents. There will be no meeting at the Iowa Capitol Building. This is not an attempt to circumvent eBay policies.

This photo will be shipped USPS Priority Mail. It will be shipped free of charge (domestic addresses) to the winning bidder.

For this, Lucas's auction has so far received a total of 21 competitive bids, for a current high bid of $2,850.00. The starting bid was $100. And there are still over three days left.

He makes it abundantly, and repeatedly, clear that the auction is ONLY for the photo, and nothing else. He continues to talk the Birther talk, but still offers up nothing that actually backs up his previous claims. He doesn't even explicitly claim the photo is from his alleged trip to Kenya; it's just a photo of himself "abroad. In airport." Given what we know about Lucas Smith's history, and given the look of this photo and the other photos he previously posted, it's incredibly likely that this photo was taken in the Dominican Republic.

Yes, some gullible Birther is about to be the proud owner of a three thousand dollar Caribbean travel photo. Signed by some dude from Cedar Rapids.

The ingenious part of this is that after that transaction takes place, I'm not sure that Lucas Smith will have done anything actionable. He clearly states that he's auctioning a signed print of that photo. He, presumably, will deliver a signed print of that photo. This auction listing is not misleading or even ambiguous as to what's being offered for sale. The winning bidder simply isn't going to have anything to stand on if they complain to eBay; they bid for a photo, they won a photo. It's not eBay's fault or Lucas's fault that they were stupid enough to pay three grand for it.

I'm not even sure it's WorldNetDaily's fault, but they're definitely guilty of some willful journalistic ignorance on this. They've posted multiple stories on Lucas's auction, often burying mention of his failure to evidence his claims. And although they ran a front-page story on the appearance of this auction, they have run no stories about all the revelations that have come to light about Mr. Lucas Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The most positive explanation for this failure is that WND has just somehow failed to see those reports; the negative explanation, on the other hand, is that while WND led its readers down the rabbit hole of believing this guy's fiction, they're afraid to admit their mistake now. And so rather than cop to it and look foolish, they're playing silent and allowing readers to continue believing in this guy enough to pay him thousands.

Of course, this doesn't tell us anything new about WND's journalistic integrity. But I think it does show us just how much contempt WND truly has for its own trusting readers. It could save some gullible reader a lot of financial pain by running a simple correction and apology; but while Joseph Farah is willing to pay ten grand for Obama birth witnesses, it seems that eating a little crow is more than he can afford.

Now of course, maybe the bidders aren't being serious either, and have no intention of paying. I'm not sure if we'll ever know the answer to that. But even then the great irony will be that they will be the ones violating eBay policy in this particular auction, not Lucas. He may be a crook and a liar, but doggone it if at the end of the day he hasn't managed to con the Birthers without actually promising anything he can't deliver. If it wasn't for the fact that he made it so easy to track down his real identity, I'd almost suspect he was a decent conman.

colmado_naranja Revealed

As previously reported, WorldNetDaily has been feverishly covering the eBay seller colmado_naranja, and his auctions for the alleged Obama Kenyan Birth Certificate that he claims to have in his possession. There have been plenty of twists in this story, almost entirely on the part of colmado_naranja's own representations, but there's one 'twist' that I'm compelled to cover, and cover immediately.

Here is the latest auction, now reduced to simply auctioning off signed photographs. In it, colmado_naranja ndicates that he intends to upload a video to his YouTube account, InspectorSmith, and posts several photos of himself:

   

One enterprising Free Republic poster put that name and photo together with the seller's apparent home of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and stumbled across this photo:



That's a CBS Photo of the Day, from a year ago. The caption reads "Lucas Smith rides his bike through the water after checking up on his flooded house in the southwestern area of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Friday June 13, 2008." It looks an awful lot like colmado_naranja, doesn't it? And it's not an understatement that he has an interesting Wikipedia page. References to "Colmado Scarlette" and a Smith-penned book about the Bush Administration?

So "colmado_naranja" is apparently Lucas Smith, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Another quick round of Googling promptly turns up thisstory from the Syracuse Post Standard:

Jim Jr. was born with one kidney. It kept him going for the first 18 years of his life. He rarely missed school, and even felt fine the day a school nurse took his blood pressure and realized something was wrong. Go see a doctor, she told him. Right away...

Jim Jr. was put on the national kidney transplant list in November 2001, five months after doctors diagnosed him with end stage renal disease...

In late 2002, a man from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, sent an e-mail to the family. The man, who called himself Lucas Smith, said he was 23 years old and had emigrated from Russia five years earlier. He had seen the Web site and, Smith said, he wanted to help.

The Wilsons stopped searching for a donor. Smith passed all of the medical, physical and psychological tests. They thought he was going to save their son's life.

Then, on May 3, 2003, Smith sent Jim Wilson Sr. an e-mail saying he wanted to be compensated for donating his kidney.

Wilson said they would pay his airfare, but because it was illegal to receive money for an organ donation, they wouldn't give him any other cash.

Five months after holding out a lifeline, Lucas Smith disappeared.

Jim Wilson Sr. called the Cedar Rapids police.

Yes, at least one Lucas Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa has previously attempted to extort money for a valuable commodity in his possession, only to never deliver on it. Maybe it's the same Lucas Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Maybe not.

Bravo, Joseph Farah, for putting this story and this attempt at con-artistry in the limelight. Bravo.

Update (7/3): Another FreeRepublic poster ran Mr. Smith's name through the archives of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and unsurprisingly, Lucas Smith has a criminal history. Most notably, in 2000 he pled guilty to passing several bad checks after opening a bank account with false information, and in 1998 he received a deferred judgment on a charge of forgery.

For Sale: Kenyan Birth Certificate and/or Journalistic Integrity.

The latest from WND:

'Proof' of Kenyan birth twice scrubbed by eBay

The first sign of suspicion (after the fact that this is a WND article to begin with) should be the single quote marks in the article title. I've come to learn that that's WND's means of conveying the idea that they're quoting something, but without actually doing so. For instance, nothing in the entire article means "proof" with regard to this eBay listing.

Whereas WND failed to do so, one poster at FreeRepublic had enough foresight to screengrab the entire listing, not just the top of it.

Only two things worth noting here, really, and both have to do with WND's coverage, not the auction itself.

First, the article finally includes this sentence in the second-to-last paragraph about the eBay auction (and before the article moves on to several generic cut-and-paste paragraphs about the "legal challenges"):

"Neither photos nor any verification of the seller's claims are available at this point."

Yep, the auction actually provides ZERO EVIDENCE of a birth certificate actually existing, but that's enough for WND to make it their headlining article for the day. The seller claims that the lack of a scan was to preserve the value of his product against a "flood of facsimiles." Fair enough, but he gives no reason for not providing a redacted version.

Considerably above this detail is a comment from the seller saying that his listing was taken down because birth certificates are forbidden for sale on eBay.

WND doesn't bother to address this, so I will: that's absolutely true. To wit:

Government IDs and licenses, or items that claim to be, or that look similar to, government identification documents are not permitted on eBay...[Including] Birth certificates, driver’s licenses or passports.

So for any purveyors of creative truths out there, take note: WorldNetDaily's journalistic standards are such that they will run news reports about your claims based on nothing more than your unsubstantiated claims. For instance, their articles the other day about the Ark of the Covenant? Totally bogus, because I have the Ark in my attic right now. I'm just a little hesitant to post photos or, y'know, proof. But I'll gladly take money from anyone who believes.

So, WorldNetDaily...where's my story?

"Obama tied to Ayers ... at age 11"

Even on the weekends, WorldNetDaily does not fail to deliver:

Obama tied to Ayers ... at age 11
Anti-military congregation attended as boy in Hawaii linked to radical's organization

Here's the breakdown: as a youngster in the early 1970s, Obama's family attended First Unitarian Church of Honolulu. First Unitarian was more than a bit of a hippie church, and in the late 1960s, the church accommodated deserters and draft dodgers, including those from the radical leftist group Students for a Democratic Society. Meanwhile, in Michigan, Bill Ayers was a prominent leader of Students for a Democratic Society. That is underlying connection behind the headline "Obama tied to Ayers...at age 11."

WND's source for this story is an article in the Hawaii Free Press.

As that article states, "Contemporary accounts of the SDS Resistance use of First Unitarian and nearby Church of the Crossroads as part of the 1968-70 sanctuary for deserters movement shows why Obama would not have wanted this information exposed." In support of this position, the article cites to a dozen newspaper articles regarding SDS or the church from the late 1960s. All of the articles are from 1968 and 1969. The article gives no specific indication of any relationship between the church and SDS after 1969.

And where was Obama during those years? Indonesia. He and his mother had moved there in 1967, and he did not return to Hawaii until 1971. So everything the Hawaii Free Press article describes happened while Obama was living 4000 miles away. Meanwhile, Ayers was living 4000 miles in the opposite direction. Despite the headline, there has never been such an extended period of time in Obama's life when he and Bill Ayers were more distant from each other.

Naturally, WND isn't quite so obtuse as to not notice these details. So while the headline is outrageous, the article proffers a different argument: "Obama, however, likely learned values during his Sunday school days at the First Unitarian in the early 1970s." And perhaps there's a nugget of truth there, underneath the piles of hyperbole.

But in the course of making this argument, WND falls victim to the common enemy of many a conspiracy theory: consistency. Just last week WND was reminding readers of Obama's extremist Muslim background, including his Muslim upbringing in Indonesia. And here they are stressing his radical Christian upbringing in Hawaii, and focusing on the exact same years of his childhood. When it's convenient to smear him as a Muslim, he's Muslim. When it's convenient to attack him as a left-wing hippie Christian, he's Christian. To the conspiratorialist, convenience trumps consistency.

Half of Americans Troubled? Not so much.

WorldNetDaily yesterday touted the results of a survey it had conducted, in an article entitled Shocker! Most Americans know of Obama eligibility questions. The surprisingly chatty and seemingly not-so-disinterested survey conductor, Phil Wenzel, had this to say about the results:

"Our polling shows that the questions surrounding Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as president clearly strike a nerve across America, probably because it is a problem that everybody understands. Every American citizen has a birth certificate, and once in a while we all have to produce them to get a drivers license or gain entrance to school. Everyone understands the simple rules – if you don't produce it, you don't get in. And while Obama did get in to the White House, nearly half the country's adults – 49 percent – are troubled by this issue and still want him to produce his official long-form birth certificate."

I bolded the last sentence because Wenzel is misstating the results of his own survey. 49% of respondents said they were troubled by the issue OR want him to produce all records, including a long-form birth certificate. "OR," not "AND." In fact, only 7.8% of respondents actually said they were "troubled."

Beyond Mr. Wenzel's misrepresentations of his own data, a cursory look at the survey itself shows that it is horribly constructed in more than one way. And it's the second question, "What is your view of those questions about Obama's eligibility to be President?"

First, as the results from the first question show, 49% of respondents said either that they weren't aware of those questions, or where unsure. So you have almost half of the survey-takers admitting a lack of familiarity with the issue. To then turn around and ask them all about their view of questions they're unfamiliar with is bizarre; it automatically means that half of your respondents just gave you an uninformed opinion.

Now if Wenzel had broken down the results for the 51% who said they WERE familiar with the questions, then that might've produced some interesting data. But he didn't. So we're stuck the possibility that a lot of people told their pollster "No, I can't say I'm familiar with those questions. But sure, I think he should release his records."

Second, Wenzel's choice of response categories is inexplicably bad for a professional pollster. For the question "What is your view of those questions about Obama's eligibility to be President?", respondents were given 7 choices:

1. I am not concerned.
2. Questions not valid.
3. Obama has met requirements.
4. Obama has answered all questions.
5. Requirements outdated - should be ignored.
6. I am troubled by these questions.
7. Obama should release all records, incl. long-form birth certificate.

WND and Wenzel trumpet the finding of the number of "troubled" Americans, but if ascertaining that was the purpose of the survey, these options are horrible. You have one response of 'Those questions trouble me,' alongside four virtually synonymous responses that are all essentially 'Those questions don't trouble me' (each one of which garners more respondents than #6). Even #5, that the Constitution's requirements should be ignored, is basically a confession of not being troubled.

And then there's option #7, which was chosen by 41.5% of respondents. If the point was to measure how troubled people are by the questions, this is a downright terrible inclusion. It doesn't fall anywhere on a spectrum of 'troubled'; respondents could be troubled and want to see the records as a result, or they might not be troubled and want to see them merely out of curiosity. Heck, respondents could have chosen #7 on the grounds that they think the questions are total bunk and that Obama should release the records in the hopes of making the conspiracy nuts shut up. The option is simply too vague and unrelated to the other options to be constructive here.

Additionally, given that half of respondents didn't know what the eligibility questions were to start with, it's impossible to say how many of the 41.5% chose this option out of sheer ignorance.

If Wenzel really wanted to include that option, he needed at least two questions, not one. The first question would ask something to the effect of "Are you concerned about whether Obama is Constitutionally eligible to be President," with options ranging from "Very much so" to "Not at all." Then there would be a second question asking "Should Obama be required to provide more proof that he is eligible?" There could even be a third, "Would you like to see Obama release additional records?"

As the old saying goes, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. And WorldNetDaily, it seems, isn't afraid to use all three.

WND Lobs a Molotov of Fictional Facts

Now that I'm back, I need something flashy to start off with. Not some mere out-there comment on Berg's site, but something more...substantive. More noteworthy.

Thankfully, WorldNetDaily has come to my rescue with the latest video from its in-house conspiracy auteur Jason "Molotov" Mitchell, entitled "How to force Obama's resignation".

The good stuff starts at 0:48:

These are the facts:

Obama's grandmother says that he was born in Kenya. His elementary school records say that he was an Indonesian citizen. He traveled in and out of Pakistan at a time when American passports were prohibited. And by the way, where are the records that show his name change from Barry Soetoro to Barack Obama? And why has he sealed all records that could indicate his national origin?

...Publicly demand the answers to these questions. Obama will resign. If he doesn't, we know that we are in a dictatorship.

I absolutely love the insane logic of the final claim above. Ask these questions and one of two things will happen: Obama will resign, or Obama will be a dictator! The answers are apparently irrelevant; merely demanding them is enough to instigate a resignation or dictatorship.

Still, perhaps we should pause to consider Mitchell's questions:

These are the facts:

Let's come back to that one, shall we?

Obama's grandmother says that he was born in Kenya.

No, she didn't. Mitchell's very first "fact" is bogus.

He's not off to a good start.

His elementary school records say that he was an Indonesian citizen.

One school registration form, not "records," states that his citizenship was "Indonesian." It also states that he was born in Honolulu. American minors can't lose their citizenship because of anything their parents subsequently do.

So the answer is: the form is in error.

He traveled in and out of Pakistan at a time when American passports were prohibited.

No, they weren't.

And by the way, where are the records that show his name change from Barry Soetoro to Barack Obama?

And where, Jason "Molotov" Mitchell, are the records that show his name change from Barack Obama TO Barry Soetoro?

Wait, what? You don't have any?

**insert not-so-stunned silence**

And why has he sealed all records that could indicate his national origin?

He hasn't.

Oh, and by "all records that could indicate his national origin," I assume you're using the standard unspoken conspiratorialist disclaimer of "all records that could indicate his national origin except all those that have already been made public that contradict my unevidenced conclusions."

So we've asked the questions. We've seen the answers. And what have we learned? That Jason Mitchell is apparently somewhat unclear as to the definition of "fact." And that his questions are disturbingly close in sequence to my own satirical birther dialogue.

Perhaps what Mitchell meant to say was "These are the scurrilous, unfounded, and unsourced rumors and lies." That, ironically, would be more factual.

Barack Obama: President for Life!

WorldNetDaily reports:

Hail King Obama: President for life
Move underway to repeal Constitution's term limits
By Drew Zahn

As Inauguration Day approaches and Barack Obama prepares to assume his first term as president, some in Congress are hoping to make it possible for the Democrat to not only seek a second term in office, but a third and fourth as well.

The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary is considering a bill that would repeal the Constitution's 22nd Amendment prohibiting a president from being elected to more than two terms in office.

Further down, the article does acknowledge a couple of details that the lede ignores:

H. J. Res. 5 is not the first attempt by Serrano to repeal the 22nd Amendment. In 2003, Serrano introduced H. J. Res. 11 to the 108th Congress to accomplish the same purpose...

At the current time, H.J. Res. 5 has not tallied any cosponsors and has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

So it's really not accurate to say "some in Congress are" doing anything, is it? The plural tense is inaccurate here. It should read "someone in Congress is..."

And the aforementioned bill in the 108th Congress is just one of the times Serrano has introduced this bill. It's not even the most recent attempt before the current one. Serrano is also responsible for proposing a repeal of the 22nd Amendment in:

110th Congress - H.J. Res 8
109th Congress - H.J. Res 9
107th Congress - H.J. Res 4
106th Congress - H.J. Res 17
105th Congress - H.J. Res 19

Yes, Rep. Serrano has proposed a repeal of the 22nd Amendment on the first day of every Congressional term since 1997. This is, at least, his seventh attempt. He made the exact same proposal four times during the eight years of the Bush Administration. Whatever Serrano's agenda is here, it doesn't seem immediately partisan.

That's not to say it's a good bill, though. Personally, I believe strongly in Presidential term limits and would hate to see Serrano succeed in getting rid of them. But WND seems to be painting this as an Obama-centric proposal, when it's not.

WorldNetDaily's Bogus Obama Petition

If you're on this blog, there's a decent chance you've heard about WorldNetDaily's Petition for Public Release of Barack Obama's Birth Certificate. WND is quite proud of this thing, currently bragging on their front page that 210,000 people have signed their petition. Birthers cite it all the time as evidence that there's actually a groundswell of support for their cause.

The standard rebuttal (as I'm not the first to point this out) is that the petition is horribly flawed, even by internet petition standards. Signing the petition requires only first and last name, and e-mail address. Zip code is optional. There's not even a clause where the signer affirms that the information given is true and accurate. That alone opens the petition to abuse, but what keeps this from being mere incompetency on WND's part, and instead elevates it into the realm of intentional con-artistry, is WND's decision to keep the actual list of signers secret. Are the same people signing the petition over and over? We can't see the list of signatories, so we don't know. Is the list full of fake names and bad aliases? We can't see the list of signatories, so we don't know.

So tonight, I engaged in a little experiment. Here's a screenshot of the petition, taken at 4:36 pm EST tonight:



You can see that at the time, the petition reflected 214,295 signatures. Granted, the page states that the total is updated periodically, so I took another screenshot at 4:57 pm EST, when the total was given as 214,705:



And another screenshot almost an hour later, at 5:54 pm EST, when the total was 214,737:



In the interim I surfed around a bit, created an Amazon listing, watched some Battlestar Galactica webisodes, and created 43 tabs over four Firefox windows that looked like this:



43 ready-to-go tabs for WND's petition, every one with the signatory name of "Barack Obama" himself, and every one with Phil Berg's e-mail address. I unchecked the little "YES!" box on each one, too.

And why 43? Not only is it the Hitchhiker's Guide answer +1, but it's also a sufficiently large number to prove my point, but also small enough that I don't need to set up 100+ tabs. Entering that info 43 times was kinda repetitive, even with Firefox's help.

Anyhow, right after 6:00 pm EST, it was time to give it a go. Here's the final screenshot, taken moments before I began submitting petition entries. For extra authentication, I put a shrunken window of the US time.gov clock on the screen. At a few seconds past 6:01 pm EST, the total was 214,738. 43 signatures in about 1 hour, 25 minutes, an average of about 1 signature every 2 minutes:



I started clicking petition submission buttons, and a couple of minutes later, I refreshed that original control window (which I didn't use to sign the petition), and it said this:



214,782. 44 signatures in 2 minutes, 8 seconds. A rather statistically improbable yet coincidental increase, wouldn't you say? An increase that reflected every one of the 43 applications I submitted, plus one additional one that reflects the average submission rate I noted above. An increase of the total during the 2 minutes of my experiment that matched the increase of the previous hour-and-a-half combined. So not only can you sign WND's petition multiple times, and not only you can sign it with the same name dozens of times within a couple of minutes, but you can sign it dozens of times within a couple of minutes even if you use the name of the President-Elect himself.

Here's one last screenshot, taken at 6:37 pm EST, after I've taken the time to upload images and type this post:



It's been over half an hour since my little experiment, and the total has only increased another 14 signatures.

So if you put any stock in the validity of this petition, take a moment to reconsider. And after that moment, take another one to reconsider exactly how much faith you should put in WND and Joseph Farah for attempting to snooker their readers like this.

Joseph Farah Is a Very Confused Man

Joseph Farah, head honcho over at WorldNetDaily, posted an editorial of sorts a couple of weeks back about other reporters' attribution to a WND finding that Obama's Certification of Live Birth is authentic. Farah takes serious issue with this, and writes:

[A]s any regular visitor would know, I don't believe that document displayed on Obama's website proves anything about his eligibility for office – other than the fact that he seems intent on hiding something...

Here's an example. It's a constituent letter from Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. He writes: "As you know, President-Elect Obama has indeed provided his actual paper Certification of Live Birth to several media organizations, as well as the Annenberg Foundation's non-partisan 'Factcheck.org' website and the conservative news website WorldNetDaily, which reported that a WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic.' In fact, all of these groups have recognized that the president elect's actual birth certificate document is real and genuine."

That statement is totally and obviously false...At no time did Obama ever make his actual birth certificate available to WND – or any other news organization.

WND did offer up to forgery experts the facsimile of a partial birth certificate posted on his website. None of them could report conclusively that the electronic image was authentic or that it was a forgery.

Written by Joseph Farah, posted on WND, December 20, 2008

So where, you ask, did Rep. Inslee get the idea that WND had authenticated the Certification? Why, he got it from WND:

A separate WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic. The investigation also revealed methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren't originally there.

Written by Drew Zahn, posted on WND, August 23, 2008

Both of these are WorldNetDaily articles, published within four months of each other. Look again at how they conflict:

Zahn, August 23: "A separate WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic."

Farah, December 20: "WND did offer up to forgery experts the facsimile of a partial birth certificate posted on his website. None of them could report conclusively that the electronic image was authentic or that it was a forgery."

What was a conclusive finding of authenticity in August is, by December, an inconclusive finding, with Farah berating other news agencies for reporting that WND had ever made a conclusive finding.

This should serve as an object lesson to anyone who considers WorldNetDaily to be a reliable news source. Because, apparently, even Joseph Farah doesn't consider WND's reporting to be reliable.