Barack Obama may be on a world tour surrounded by a fawning media, but Sunday an expert in electronic document forensics released a detailed report on the purported birth certificate -- actually a "Certification of Live Birth" or COLB -- claimed as genuine by his campaign. The expert concludes with 100% certainty that it is a crudely forged fake: "a horribly forgery," according to the analysis published on the popular right-wing Atlas Shrugs blog.

The purported birth certificate was published by the left wing Daily Kos blog on June 12 in response to unconfirmed reports that Obama was not in fact born in the United States (Canada and Kenya were suggested as the possible locations of his actual birth). Since he would in that case not be a natural born US citizen (his mother was not present in the US sufficiently long as an adult to pass American citizenship on to him automatically), he would not be eligible to be president. Israel Insider has followed the story in five previous articles (the previous one here) and uncovered evidence, most recently, of admitted forgery among Daily Kos bloggers, tolerance of electronic forgeries on the blog site, as well as efforts by a blog administrator to conceal the admission of forgery.

The latest examinaton of the purported documents is by far the most detailed and technically sophisticated to date.

Atlas Shrugs publisher Pamela Geller reports that the expert analyst, who goes by the screen name "Techdude", is "an active member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, American College of Forensic Examiners, The International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners, International Information Systems Forensics Association -- the list goes on. He also a board certified as a forensic computer examiner, a certificated legal investigator, and a licensed private investigator. He has been performing computer-based forensic investigations since 1993 (although back then it did not even have a formal name yet) and he has performed countless investigations since then."

 

The pseudonym was apparently inadequate to prevent Techdude's identity from being exposed. He reports that last week one or more persons "decided to track me down and vandalize my car and hang a dead mutilated rabbit from my front door in a lame attempt to intimidate me from proceeding with releasing any details of my analysis. They did succeed in delaying the report by a few days but instead of deterring me they just really pissed me off. To their credit, if I had not taken a few days off from the analysis I would have missed the most damning piece of evidence -- the remnants of the previous security border."

Techdude's detailed report, which runs more than 3000 words and 20 pages with extensive magnified illustrations and comparisons, reaches the following conclusion about the documented that was first published on the Daily Kos extreme left-wing blog and subsequently publicly endorsed by the Obama campaign, both in statements by official spokesmen, and featured on its "Fight the Smears" website. Here are some of conclusions:

"The (Daily) KOS image security border pattern does not match any known specimen from any known year. It does not match the pre-2006 nor does it match the post-2006 certificate patterns. The placement of the text in all of the pre-2006 and post-2006 certificates are almost identical pixel location matches while the image?s text placement does not match any known specimen from any known year. The shape and kerning of the fonts used in the 2006 through 2008 certificates are identical while the shape and kerning of the fonts used in the image does not match any known specimen. The KOS image shows clear signs of tampering such as the mismatch in RGB and error levels, visible indications of the previous location of the erased security border, easily detectable patterns of repeating flaws around the new security border, EXIF data that says the image was last saved with Photoshop CS3 for Macintosh, and finally a technician from Hawaii who confirms it just looks wrong."

The evidence, he says, allows for two possible scenarios by which the document was fabricated:

"There are two obvious scenarios used to create the image that can be ascertained from evidence. Either a real COLB was scanned into Photoshop and digitally edited or a real COLB was first scanned to obtain the graphic layout then blanked by soaking the document in solvent to remove the toner. After rescanning the blank page to a separate image the graphics from the previously obtained scan could then be easily applied to the blank scan after some editing and rebuilding. It would also explain why date stamp bleeds through the paper and the various bits of toner located around the image as well as the remnants of the previous location of a security border."

The purported birth certificate was published by the Daily Kos on June 12 in response to unconfirmed reports that Obama was not in fact born in the United States (Canada and Kenya were suggested as the possible locations of his actual birth). Since he would in that case not be a natural born US citizen (his mother was not present in the US sufficiently long as an adult to pass American citizenship on to him automatically), he would not be eligible to be president.

After more than a month of controversy and demands that the Obama campaign produce a paper birth certificate for analysis, this damning new evidence raises the stakes for the democratic party and its front-runner.

Will Obama and his people continue to stonewall in the facing of the mounting evidence of forgery, and provide paper proof of an authentic, original birth certificate or even a genuine secondary Certificate of Live Birth? And will the mass media and mainstream pundits -- which so far have hesitated to touch the hot potato -- finally address the loaded issue of his possible unfitness to meet the basic Constitutional requirement for a President?

Perhaps the outspoken Israeli press corps will be able to do what their fawning American counterparts have failed to do so far. Obama's visit this week to Israel will be an opportunity to begin asking the tough questions -- however unpolitically correct -- about his apparently forged birth certificate and what that means for his citizenship status and Constitutional fitness to be the next leader of the free world.

Obama will speak about “historic” US-German relations, but once again, Obama’s own grasp of history has been proven deficient. Not only does the site contain a monument to Prussian victories over other American allies in Europe, its placement was decided by Adolf Hitler — in order to impress crowds in his idealized version of Berlin called Germania.

 

[...]

 

Hitler didn’t just move the monument to its more central location. He had a taller column built for it as well, to emphasize its message of German military domination over Europe. He saw it as a message to Germans of their destiny — as well as to other Europeans as their destiny as well. It was never meant as a symbol of peaceful, multicultural co-existence.

 

Team Obama has outdone themselves on symbolism with this choice. They’ve managed to make their hosts uncomfortable for a second time with their choice of rallying point, and perhaps more so this time. If one wanted to talk peace, what worse location could one choose than Adolf Hitler’s favorite monument to militaristic domination? One has to wonder how France, Denmark, and Austria will feel about Obama rallying German masses under the Siegessäule. Deja vu?

 

Obama could be excused for his gaffe, except for two reasons. His team certainly understood the historical weight that the Brandenburg Gate would have lent his event, so why didn’t they bother to ask the Germans about the Siegessäule? Quite obviously, the Germans understand the meaning and subtext of the monument, and most of them wonder why Obama does not. Maybe this is a better example of clueless Americans traveling abroad than those who can only say Merci, beaucoup.

The Pakistani government has negotiated yet another peace agreement with the Taliban in the tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan. The latest agreement was signed in the Orakzai tribal agency, Geo TVreported.

The agreement mirrors other peace deals that have been signed in the tribal areas and in several settled districts in the Northwest Frontier Province.

Orakzai is the sixth of seven tribal agency agencies where the government has negotiated peace agreements with the Taliban. The western border region with Afghanistan is now virtually under Taliban control. While the Pakistani military operates outposts along the border and maintains garrisons in some agencies, the Taliban are free to establish and maintain their shadow governments and surge forces into Afghanistan.

The security situation in northwestern Pakistan and in Afghanistan has rapidly deteriorated since the government initiated its latest round of peace accords with the Taliban and allied extremists in the tribal areas and settled districts in the Northwest Frontier Province. Peace agreements have been signed with the Taliban in North Waziristan, Swat, Dir, Bajaur, Malakand, Mohmand, and Khyber.

Negotiations are under way in South Waziristan, Kohat, and Mardan. The Taliban have violated the terms of these agreements in every region where accords have been signed.

The Taliban, al Qaeda, and allied terrorist groups have established more than 100 terror camps in the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province, US intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal.

BAGHDAD — After intense U.S. assaults, Al Qaeda may be considering shifting focus to its original home base in Afghanistan, where American casualties are running higher than in Iraq, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Saturday.

"We do think that there is some assessment ongoing as to the continued viability of Al Qaeda's fight in Iraq," Gen. David Petraeus told The Associated Press in an interview at his office at the U.S. Embassy.

Whatever the result, Petraeus said no one should expect Al Qaeda to give up entirely in Iraq.

"They're not going to abandon Iraq. They're not going to write it off. None of that," he said. "But what they certainly may do is start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan."

He said there are signs that foreign fighters recruited by Al Qaeda to do battle in Iraq are being diverted to the largely ungoverned areas in Pakistan from which the fighters can cross into Afghanistan. U.S. officials have pressed Pakistan for more than a year to halt the cross-border infiltration. It remains a major worry not only for the war in Afghanistan but also for Pakistan's stability.

Discussing Al Qaeda in cautious terms, Petraeus said he is not certain of the reliability of the intelligence information about the terrorist network's latest thinking. He was adamant, however, that until now Al Qaeda has seen Iraq as its best opportunity for establishing a militant Islamic state closer to the Persian Gulf.

"That could be under review," Petraeus said. "We do think they are considering what should be the main effort."

He offered a mostly upbeat assessment of conditions in Iraq just weeks before he is to make a recommendation on whether to further reduce U.S. troop levels. Petraeus said the country is showing fresh signs of promise not only on the security front, where insurgent attacks are down sharply, but also politically.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Fox News he is convinced the Iranians are seeking to building an atomic bomb, “a very destabilizing possibility in that part of the world.” He stressed the US had the capacity and the reserves to attack Iran as a last resort

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources stressed the special significance of Mullen’s statement on Sunday, July 20. The night before, a senior Israeli security official said that if the US-Iranian talks failed, President Bush planned to use the three-month period between the November elections in America and his exit from the White House in January for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Senior Israeli official: If nuclear talks fail, Bush will order Iran attack between November and January. This assessment was reported by Israeli national radio Saturday overnight quoting a high-placed “security-political” official.

The source predicted that President George W. Bush would order Iran attacked between the November 4 presidential election and his exit from the White House in January. The quote was aired shortly after the six-power talks with Iran in Geneva – with US official participation for the first time – failed, and just before Israel chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi set out for Washington. He is to spend a week there as guest of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

DEBKAfile’s political sources describe the disclosure as a step aimed at slowing down the collapse of Israel’s stated policy of relying on international diplomatic pressure to thwart Iran’s acquisition of nuclear arms. It is expected to raise a furious outcry from the powers spearheading the diplomatic effort and prompt extreme reactions from Tehran.

Our sources report that the unidentified Israeli “security-political” source sought to achieve three objectives:

1. Underlining the signal that the US military option had not been taken off the table after the state department spokesman said Iran must choose between cooperation with the international community and confrontation.

The official was also giving Israel’s answer to the latest evaluations making the rounds in Washington that the Israeli Air Force does not have enough warplanes to strike Iran’s nuclear sites without American military support.

2. A signal that the presence at the Geneva talks Saturday, July 19, of Under Secretary of State William Burns, far from being a concession, was an implicit ultimatum. Tehran was being told that no more than three months remained for it to suspend uranium enrichment before Bush made good on his pledge to resolve the issue before he left the White House. No member of the Bush administration is saying this directly, whether Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates or the president himself. Israel will not doubt be rebuked for its disclosure.

3. As a high-risk step to derail the accommodations Washington and Tehran are on the way to reaching in their secret talks on a wide range of issues, with the exception of the nuclear controversy, as revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly and DEBKAfile. Israel fears being abandoned and left out in the cold on all its fronts against Iran by these accommodations.

Tehran may well seize on the Israeli disclosure as a pretext to ditch the nuclear negotiations on all levels, unless all six powers offer guarantees against their pursuit of military initiatives.

   

   

   

   

                                     

“The irony is, the only people McCain can count on to vote for him are the very Republicans he despises — at least those of us who can get drunk enough on Election Day to pull the lever for him. In fact, we should organize parties around the country where Republicans can get drunk so they can vote for McCain. We can pass out clothespins with his name as a reminder and slogan-festooned vomit bags. The East Coast parties can post the number of drinks necessary for the task to help the West Coast parties.” — Ann Coulter

WASHINGTON — The political vision of a summer gas tax holiday died a quick death in Congress, losing to a view that federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel — far from dropping — will have to go up if they go anywhere.

Despite calls from the presidential campaign trail for a Memorial Day-to-Labor Day tax freeze, lawmakers quickly concluded — with a prod from the construction industry — that having $9 billion less to spend on highways could create a pre-election specter of thousands of lost jobs.

Now, lawmakers quietly are talking about raising fuel taxes by a dime from the current 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents on diesel fuel.

The fuel taxes go into the Highway Trust Fund, which is used for road construction and repair and mass transit. Depriving the 52-year-old Highway Trust Fund of $9 billion at a time when it is heading into the red doomed the notion of a gas tax holiday in Congress.

[...]

Senate Democrats in May tried to add $5 billion to an aviation overhaul bill to replenish the highway trust fund next year; Republicans objected. Democrats tried again in June, but this time for $8 billion; Republicans objected to that, too.

Congress should first reduce spending on pet projects, known as earmarks, argued Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. "I'm not going to let the Senate spend all this money when nobody is looking, especially when we refuse to stop wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on earmarks."

[...]

Among other revenue-raising possibilities, the commission recommended gradually increasing the current federal fuel taxes to 40 cents a gallon.

Other ideas that will be on the table when lawmakers write a bill next year including more toll roads and public-private partnerships, congestion pricing and user fees where drivers pay a tax based on how many miles they drive.

The Illinois senator announced his plans to tour the war zones after facing criticism from John McCain and Republicans. McCain has been to Iraq eight times and last traveled there in March.

The trip affords Obama a unique opportunity to meet not only U.S. commanders on the ground but foreign dignitaries and top U.S. allies — while the world watches.

Earlier, Obama met with U.S. troops at Camp Arifjan, the main U.S. military base in Kuwait and gateway for U.S. soldiers heading into and out of Iraq.

He spoke in front of the troops and praised them for their service, while also talking about his strategic goals.

“We’ve got to have clearer strategic vision that uses all of our power — our economic power, our diplomatic power, our intellectual power, as well as our military power, to help make this world safer,” he said.

“I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what the most, their biggest concerns are, and I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they’ve been doing,” he said.

McCain, in his radio address released Saturday, criticized Obama for announcing his strategy for both countries before departing on his “fact-finding mission” abroad.

“Apparently, he’s confident enough that he won’t find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable,” McCain said in the address.

And in response to a memo from the Obama camp accusing McCain of following Obama’s foreign policy lead, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said: “The only reason that the conversation about reducing troop levels in Iraq is happening is because John McCain challenged the failed Rumsfield-strategy in Iraq and argued for the surge strategy that is responsible for the successes we’ve achieved and which Barack Obama opposed.”

Speaking in Washington on July 17, Gore called on Americans to completely abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within 10 years, and replace them with carbon-free renewables like solar, wind and geothermal.

"To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world's scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don't act in 10 years," he said. He's right. A number of scientists, though not all, warn that the world has a decade at most to reverse the growth in greenhouse gas emissions, or risk catastrophic climate change. But here's the fact that keeps me up at night: Gore and his allies could be right. We may simply be technologically and politically incapable of doing anything about it. Maybe we've already run out of time, and we just don't know it.

Night terrors aside, the 10-year target is a mistake for strategic reasons. It feeds into the perception still held by a large number of Americans that Gore is an alarmist, and alarmists can be ignored. Such a wildly ambitious goal sets us up for failure, and obscures the fact that the battle against climate change won't be won in a decade, or even two — it will last for the foreseeable future and beyond. (And if you think Gore has thoughts about returning to the political arena, forget it. His speech couldn't have come at a worse time for Democrats, who are already fighting off accusations that they're insensitive to rising gas prices.)

The moon shot called for focused scientific resources for a single target. Outside Houston and Cape Canaveral, most of us just watched. But decarbonizing our energy supply will require innovation, funding and sacrifice at every level of society. It will be long and arduous, and even if it works, we won't be rewarded with stirring film of a man on the moon. The spoils of this fight will be a world that will perhaps be less worse off than it would have been had nothing been done. What we most need is time to make these changes, but that's what we've squandered. If only someone else had been President these past eight years — someone like, well, Al Gore.

"Sen. Obama is going to arrive in Baghdad in a much, much safer and secure environment than the one that he would've encountered before we started the surge," McCain said, referring to a boost in U.S. troop numbers in Iraq that began last year.

McCain, who has made national security and foreign policy the centerpiece of his campaign for the November 4 election, has pressed Obama to visit Iraq.

Robert Gibbs, a top aide to Obama, had no comment on McCain's remark.

The Obama campaign has announced he would soon visit Jordan, Israel, London, Paris and Berlin but has made public only the barest of details.

McCain, a strong backer of the U.S. troop build-up that President George W. Bush launched in early 2007, said that while in Iraq Obama should thank the top U.S. military officer, Gen. David Petraeus, for the current strategy and "thank him for his leadership."

He said Obama should express his regrets to Petraeus for failing to support a non-binding Senate resolution last year condemning an advertisement in The New York Times by a liberal group that mocked Petraeus as "Gen. Betray-us."

"So he'll land in a very different Baghdad. And we have succeeded in Iraq, and we will win if we continue with this strategy that we are pursuing," McCain said.

(CNN) -- Democratic candidate Barack Obama heads overseas next week for a whistle-stop series of meetings with Middle Eastern and European leaders but with an eye firmly on the U.S. presidential race back home.

Sen. Barack Obama is expected to visit several world leaders over the next few weeks.

Obama's trip, which includes visits to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, is intended to bolster his foreign policy credentials amid concerns that he has not convinced voters of his suitability to be the next U.S. president.

A spokesman for Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Obama will meet with her in Berlin on Thursday, The Associated Press reported Friday.

"This is the campaign trail via satellite -- pictures for the rhetoric back home," CNN's Candy Crowley said, adding that the trip was intended to demonstrate that Obama was up to the job of taking a lead role on the international stage.

"The question is, is he tough enough to stand up for America but graceful enough to improve her image?" Crowley said.

In a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, 48 percent of registered voters said Obama would make a good commander in chief, compared with 72 percent for his Republican rival John McCain.

Obama is also slated to visit Iraq and Afghanistan this month. No public schedule for those visits has been released for security reasons. "The message to voters back home is that he is focused on being a strong and effective commander in chief who is going to rehabilitate our image across the world," Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh said.

But a spokeswoman for McCain said Thursday that Obama's trip was politically motivated. "It's about politics. It's a way for Obama to try and compete on foreign policy," Jill Hazelbaker told the AP.

Obama is also scheduled to visit Afghanistan and Iraq this month with two Senate colleagues, Democrat Jack Reed and Republican Chuck Hagel. McCain has visited both countries and accuses his rival of naivete for suggesting that Iraq had distracted the United States from the growing conflict in Afghanistan.

"To say that Iraq is somehow disconnected from Afghanistan shows again incredible naivety," McCain said this week. A video released by the McCain campaign also accused Obama of "flip-flopping" over his plans to withdraw troops from Iraq.

SEATTLE (AP) — Michelle Obama urged a Democratic crowd to elect leaders who will fight "for the world the way that it should be," and said that the choices for voters are clear.

Obama said Thursday that her husband, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, and Gov. Chris Gregoire "share the same vision for this country."

"The world as it should be is the world that Barack and Chris have been fighting for their entire lives and they are doing it in a way that we haven't seen before," she said.

Obama spoke to a crowd of about 1,600 at WaMu Theater at Qwest Field. Gregoire was expected to raise about $400,000 at the fundraiser, spokesman Aaron Toso said.

"You already know you have a phenomenal governor," Obama said. "You guys have it pretty good. My motto is, 'Don't change it if it ain't broken.' She has not just been a phenomenal leader in this state, but in this nation."

She said that Gregoire's work on issues like climate change, health care and education are examples of change that voters are looking for.

"That's change we can believe in," she said to cheers.

ASHLAND, Neb. (AP) — Presidential hopeful John McCain had kind words for fellow Republican Chuck Hagel on Wednesday, but wouldn't speculate on whether the Nebraska senator might be Democrat Barack Obama's choice for a running mate.

McCain did say Hagel could have a place in his own administration, and that he'll continue to talk to him and value his opinions.

The Arizona senator was in Nebraska for a fundraiser at the Strategic Air and Space Museum in Ashland. Former U.S. Rep. Hal Daub, chairman of McCain's Nebraska campaign, said the event raised more than $700,000.

In an interview with The Associated Press, McCain said he and Hagel are "close and dear friends" who came to different conclusions on the Iraq war. Hagel has been an outspoken critic of the war, while McCain says the United States needs to stay in Iraq and achieve victory.

Hagel, who is accompanying Obama on an upcoming trip to Iraq, told The Associated Press last month that he would consider serving as Obama's running mate if asked, but doesn't expect to be on any ticket.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or as she is called on the Big Dogs blog, "the worst speaker in the history of Congress," explained the cause of high oil prices back in 2006: "We have two oilmen in the White House. The logical follow-up from that is $3-a-gallon gasoline. It is no accident. It is a cause and effect. A cause and effect."

Yes, that would explain why the price of oral sex, cigars and Hustler magazine skyrocketed during the Clinton years. Also, I note that Speaker Pelosi is a hotelier ... and the price of a hotel room in New York is $1,000 a night! I think she might be onto something.

Is that why a barrel of oil costs mere pennies in all those other countries in the world that are not run by "oilmen"? Wait -- it doesn't cost pennies to them? That's weird.

Conservation, efficiency and using oil we hold in reserve for emergencies does not get us more energy. It's as if we were running out of food and the Democrats were telling us: "Just eat a little less every day." Great! We'll die a little more slowly. That's not what we call a "plan." We need more energy, not a plan for a slower death.

But there's more! Pelosi announced that the Democrats also plan to push for "an historic investment in biofuels, efficiency, conservation and the rest." The "rest" is apparently what she called our "important and essential" investment in alternative energy.

That certainly would be historic: We would make history by throwing our money away on unproven energy boondoggles that have eaten up untold billions since the 1960s without producing a single net kilowatt of power while we all starve to death.

The proposal to use energy sources that don't yet produce any energy is like the old New Yorker cartoon with Obama in Muslim garb -- no wait, that was a different cartoon. The cartoon is: A scientist has written out his extremely complicated theory on a blackboard and is showing it to another scientist. The theory consists of numbers and characters and takes up the entire blackboard. About two-thirds of the way across, reading left to right, appear the words, "then a miracle happens," followed by more numbers and characters.

That's the Democrats' plan to run cars on biofuels, solar and wind power: Then a miracle happens. The current Democratic mantra on energy is: "We can't drill our way out of this problem." Ap