Saturday, November 15, 2008

Where's there's smoke, there's fire

'Constitutional crisis' looming over Obama's birth location
Alan Keyes lawsuit warns America may see 'usurper' in Oval Office

"The California secretary of state should refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election

until President-elect Barack Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office, alleges a California court petition filed on behalf of former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others."

"The legal action today is just the latest is a series of challenges, some of which have gone as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, over the issue of Obama's status as a "natural-born citizen," a requirement set by the U.S. Constitution."

Where' there's smoke, there's fire. This is not the first court case to allege Obama needs to assuage suspicions that he is not a natural-born citizen and thus not constitutionally qualified to be President. PA, CA, WA, CT and other states have also filed suits. Wonder where this will all lead.

19 comments:

Ted said...

Unavoidable scenario: If SCOTUS disqualifies Obama BEFORE 1/20/09 inauguration, McCain is POTUS per remaining electoral college electors; if SCOTUS disqualifies Obama after 1/20/09 inauguration, Hillary likely becomes POTUS per vote of Dem controlled House of Rep. Either way, is clear Obama will NOT be or remain POTUS.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone provided proof that Obama is not a natural-born citizen? Because anyone challenging his citizenship will bear the plaintiff's burden of proof. Not hearsay, not theory, not evidence...irrefutable proof. And penalties for filing frivolous lawsuits where a plaintiff knows he has no proof can be very expensive for wasting the valuable time and resources of the court.

Elizabeth Prata said...

yes, they have reasonable doubt. They presented it in a court suit and asked that Obama produce his certificate to prove he is.

Obama's grandmother said she was present at his birth in Kenya. Obama admitted on his website that he was a dual citizen of Kenya until age 18.

Also, Obama was adopted by an Indonesian step father and obtained an Indonesian passport. Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship so that means he renounced his US citizenship.

Most presidential candidates produce documents such as these on a regular basis: birth certificates, college transcripts, financial data, medical data. McCain produced all of it. Obama: none of it.

There had been a brief question about McCain, having been born on US military base in Panama, and that was probed, documents produced, and resolved. Obama continues the situation deepening to the point of a Constitutional crisis by refusing to address the question despite solid basis for good questions.

So...why doesn't Obama just produce his certificate and put this to rest?

Anonymous said...

Maybe he lost it. None of this stuff matters...The American people overwhelmingly chose Obama as the man they want to lead the country as the 44th President, birth certificate or no birth certificate. The time to challenge was BEFORE the election. Now, it's too late. Anyone who knows anything about Alan Keyes knows this is just another one of his attempts to draw attention to himself so he can make some hay off Obama's hard work and landslide Presidential victory. It's not working. Obama won the election. He didn't just win, it was one of the largest margins of victory ever and Obama received the most votes for President in U.S. History. It's time for the country to pull together. That's what the vast majority of us voted for. Sad that some still want to divide this great country and tell the largest number of voters in U.S. history their votes don't count. Guess that's why Alan Keyes never got anywhere in his runs for President and Obama won on his first try.

Anonymous said...

Also, you can look at it this way: Let's say the people of California who overwhelmingly voted for Obama go along with Keyes' desire for California to not cast their 55 electoral votes for Obama. OK, let's give Keyes what he wants. Take those 55 votes away. Heck, give 'em to McCain. Obama still wins in a convincing landslide. I think I just heard a California judge mutter "frivolous" under his breath before tearing Alan Keyes a new one.

Elizabeth Prata said...

To both Frivolous Anonymous and Doesn't Matter Anonymous above: the Constitution of the United States is not frivolous. And it matters. As long as we are a country of laws, the Constitution matters.

Elizabeth Prata said...

oops! Someone just commented and I accidentally deleted the comment instead of publishing it. I am sorry about that.

Anonymous said...

I agree that the Constitutional requirement of being an American citizen BY BIRTH is very important and cannot be ignored. So, isn't there a mechanism in place to verify that the major parties' candidates have qualified in all respects (Before the election)? When is that point, and wasn't his birth affirmed then? It does seem too late now (but not because the 55 lost votes wouldn't be enough to unelect him). That's a sloppy way to run the US Presidential election if Constitutional qualifications have not been established for the candidates way before the election. For that reason, and I would like to believe it could not slip through the cracks, Obama is quite likely qualified (by native birth at least)

Anonymous said...

I don't think (and this is just a hunch) that there is much to the legal arguments around this. Reason? If there were I would have expected the Republican Party to have jumped all over it. Odds are that one of their many researchers vetted it and it was not credible.
So why hasn't Obama released it? Because it is one of those conspiracy arguments and politicians really shouldn't get into conspiracy things. There isn't any way to convince conspiracy theorists they are wrong.
As you know, I am no Obama apologist but I don't think there is anything to this one.
Chuck

Anonymous said...

Sometimes there is lots of smoke but no fire. As in stink-bombs from people who hold grudges. (Not you personally).

Elizabeth Prata said...

interesting, Chuck. I guess we will see. Though, his refusal to also produce his medical records, financial records, and transcripts in full makes me wonder.

Christie said...

Here's a link to the copy of Obama's U.S. birth certificate: http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate

I agree with Chuck on this one. Republicans would have made a much bigger deal if this were true, meaning if Obama was not born a U.S. citizen, than the little press it did get.

Here's some more info I found:

"Obama arrived in Indonesia at about the age of five according to most accounts... If Lolo Soetoro adopted Obama at age five or younger, then Obama would automatically have become an Indonesian citizen according to the country's laws in the 1960's, which stipulated any child aged five or younger adopted by an Indonesian father is immediately granted Indonesian citizenship upon completion of the adoption process.

Indonesian law at the time also did not recognize dual citizenship, meaning if Obama became Indonesian, then as far as that country was concerned, his U.S. citizenship was no longer recognized by Indonesia. But U.S. law would still recognize Obama as an American citizen."

Anonymous said...

The media did not do a thorough job scrutinizing Obama. They gave only a cursory examination of his records, accomplishments, friends, etc. The only time the main stream media reported on things negative to Obama was when it was forced to because it had become the 600 lb gorilla in the room. I don't think the birth certificate will equal Ayers or Wright but his lack of full disclosure will be a long-term problem and the media will suffer because of the limited access they will enjoy compared with the access they had and could have had with McCain.

Chuck

Elizabeth Prata said...

Hi Christie:

The Birth certificate is different from the Certificate of Live Birth (COLB) which is what Obama posted. Nor does it have the required watermark nor the raised seal of the registrar.Forensic scrutiny of the COLB he released also showed a different border than the ones used by HI at the time. All this raises questions.

Christie said...

Here's what I found:

"When the official documents were questioned, we went looking for more answers. We circled back to the Department of Health, had a newsroom colleague bring in her own Hawaii birth certificate to see if it looks the same (it’s identical). But every answer triggered more questions.

And soon enough, after going to every length possible to confirm the birth certificate’s authenticity, you start asking, what is reasonable here?

Because if this document is forged, then they all are.

If this document is forged, a U.S. senator and his presidential campaign have perpetrated a vast, long-term fraud. They have done it with conspiring officials at the Hawaii Department of Health, the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics, the Illinois Secretary of State’s office, the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois and many other government agencies. ...

The Hawaii Department of Health receives about a dozen e-mail inquiries a day about Obama’s birth certificate, spokesman Okubo said.

“I guess the big issue that’s being raised is the lack of an embossed seal and a signature,” Okubo said, pointing out that in Hawaii, both those things are on the back of the document. “Because they scanned the front … you wouldn’t see those things.”

Okubo says she got a copy of her own birth certificate last year and it is identical to the Obama one we received.

And about the copy we e-mailed her for verification? “When we looked at that image you guys sent us, our registrar, he thought he could see pieces of the embossed image through it.”

Still, she acknowledges: “I don’t know that it’s possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents.”

• • •

And there’s the rub. It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world’s biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything’s possible.

But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what’s reasonable has to take over.

There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact’s conclusion that the candidate’s name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn’t authentic."

Anonymous said...

John McCain said it best, "The American people have spoken. And they have spoken clearly." The best, most honest words he spoke in his entire campaign. The election is over. Obama is the 44th President. You all need to get over it and join the rest of us in moving on as a united country again.

Anonymous said...

A candidate for public office was asked by a voter/voters to offer proof that would make the candidate's ballot a legal ballot, using the same standard of proof required of others.

This candidate offered a lesser form of proof and refused to offer a similar standard of proof required by others.

The voter appealed to the court to intervene.

The court ruled that the voter did not have the right to ask the candidate this question.

Do you agree with the court?

Anonymous said...

Yes, I agree with the court. Time to move on, people.

Elizabeth Prata said...

It is NEVER "time to move on" when the Constitution is at risk.

the courts that have dismissed the case have not dismissed it because it had no merit. They dismissed (two of them out of the dozen or so suits ongoing) because it is not clear who has standing to even bring the case.

However, the Supreme Court decided to hear the case and will do so Dec 5. If you want to tell someone to move on then tell the 10 plaintiffs in ten states and the Supreme Court.

Like I say, where there's smoke, there's fire.