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Citizen Obama?
By Samuel Ashwood | December 11, 2008
The national media has tried to keep the story hushed up, but in spite of the courts, more and more Americans are wondering about the eligibility of Barack Obama for the presidency of the United States. The questions arise because of Article 2, Section I of the Constitution, which requires that any candidate for the office be a “natural born citizen.” A compelling case can be made that President-elect Obama is disqualified under that provision.
A number of facts argue against Obama’s eligibility. First and foremost, the governor of Hawaii has refused to release Obama’s birth certificate. Now, most of us can produce our birth certificate for a driver’s license test, a job interview, or any number of causes, in a matter of minutes. Shouldn’t a candidate for the president be held to at least as high a standard as a teenager applying for permission to drive on American streets and highways?
No one seems to know for certain where Obama was born. Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro has named two Hawaiian hospitals where he may have been born. A Kenyan ambassador, on the other hand, has stated that Obama’s birthplace in Kenya is already being recognized. Is there such confusion about your place of birth?
Other arguments have been raised against Obama. If he was born in Kenya, at that time a British colony, his dual citizenship would make him ineligible for the American presidency. Others claim that Obama was once listed as having Indonesian citizenship. Since Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship, this raises the question as to whether Obama’s American citizenship was revoked during his residence in that country.
Obama’s defenders point to a “certificate of live birth” which certifies he was born in Hawaii. Leaving aside possible concerns as to the authenticity of the document, Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 demolishes that argument. HWR 338-178 “allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence,” according to reports. Therefore, the only way to completely verify Obama’s birth status is for his birth certificate, with the name of the hospital and the doctor who delivered him, to be made public.
A number of cases are being presented to the Supreme Court challenging Obama’s eligibility for office. The first, brought by Leo C. Donofrio, has already been rejected. Others, including one brought by presidential candidate Alan Keyes, are pending. So far a petition drive spearheaded by WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah has collected 175,000 signatures requesting the Supreme Court to look into this constitutioanl crisis. But whether the Supreme Court will rock the boat by agreeing to hear any of the cases is doubtful, at best.
To the honest observer (meaning patriotic Americans outside the pale of the establishment media) it is becoming more and more evident that this is a constitutional crisis. Will Obama’s birth certificate be produced to silence the growing outrage, or will the media and the courts conspire to quash what should be front-line news every day until the question is resolved?
Topics: Volume 3, Issue 9 |
December 11th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Re: “Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 demolishes that argument. HWR 338-178 “allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence,” according to reports.”
Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth by issuing a Hawaii certification of live birth. BUT it does not allow that certification to contain a lie. Why not? If Hawaii certifications allowed people who were not born in Hawaii to show that they were born in Hawaii, then Hawaii would be making US citizens out of people who were not US citizens. Besides the law would have to include detailed language saying that the parents could claim any location in Hawaii that they wanted to claim as the location of birth. There is nothing like that in the legislation.
So the effect is this is that if you are born outside of Hawaii, then if your parents lived in Hawaii, they can get for you a Hawaii certification of live birth. BUT that document will always say after “location of birth” the place where the person was actually born.
Obama’ sister, born in Indonesia, has a Hawaii certification of live birth, but that document has “born in Indonesia,” or whatever city in Indonesia it was.
Obama’s certification of live birth says on it born in Indonesia several times, under location of birth (Honolulu), Island of birth (Oahu) and county of birth (Honolulu). Thus, if a Kenyan birth certificate was filed in the Hawaii birth records, Hawaii could not issue a Certification that says that Obama was born in Hawaii. Thus the document in Obama’s files is a Hawaii birth document, which is what the officials in Hawaii were indicating when they said that Obama’s certificate of live birth was accurate.
Next, why doesn’t Obama show his original birth certificate? I have been in e-mail correspondence with the Department of Health of Hawaii, and they say that they issue only the Certification of Live Birth these days. They do not allow the original documents to be removed from the files. They do not copy the original documents and send them out. They only issue the Certification of Live Birth, which is accepted by all departments and accepted by the US State Department for issuing passports.
Next the illogic of Obama having been born in Kenya.
Suppose that you were Obama’s mother and had given birth to him in Kenya. I do not believe that she did. In order to travel to Africa you had to get a Yellow Fever shot in those days, and it was a difficult and expensive trip. But one way to see how unlikely it was that she gave birth in Kenya is simply to imagine that she had given birth in Kenya and to put yourself in her shoes.
We know also from her high school friends that she was a popular girl and probably continued to have many friends throughout her life.
But apparently she told no one about one of the most interesting experiences of her life, which was that she went to Kenya when she was only 18 and gave birth in a hospital in Kenya. This would be a very unusual thing for an American woman to not do (to discuss an unusual hospital stay), and it (the hospital in Kenya and the trip to Kenya) would have been a good topic of discussion throughout her life. It would be hard to resist talking about giving birth in Kenya, and for that matter, it would be difficult to not discuss a trip to Kenya at all in 1961.
Yet no friends of Obama’s late mother have come forward saying “I remember she told me about that trip, about the hospital, about how hot it was” or anything about such a trip. Yet, during the election, that fact would have been of interest, and surely one of them would have written a letter to an editor or called a newspaper to mention the fact that Obama’s mother had said she gave birth in Kenya. But no one did.
It is difficult to imagine that Obama’s mother never mentioned the trip to Kenya or the birth in Kenya to her friends.
For that matter, she did not mention it to her son. For surely if he had known that he was born in Kenya, he would have let that fact slip sometime when he was attending school in Hawaii, and if he did, one or more of his friends would recall that he did. But none of his friends have mentioned that “he told me he was born in Kenya.” At least none of them have called a news conference or sent a letter to the editor.
So, we have at least one logical reason why it was unlikely that Obama’s mother gave birth in Kenya: She would have had to keep it secret for the rest of her life, and why would she do that. Did she think that her child would be elected president in 2008? Hardly.
There is also the absence of photographs of the infant Obama in Kenya or his mother in Kenya. To be sure, if Obama plotted to conceal his birth in Kenya, he might have been able over the years to destroy all the photographs. But how likely is it?
Then, the folks who claim that Obama was born in Kenya cannot show any official Kenyan documents to prove that he was born there or that his mother was in Kenya at the time of birth. This is explained by right wing blogs by the Kenyan government having sealed the files. But only right wing blogs and the “news agency” WND claims that the Kenyan government sealed the files. There is no confirmation of this from any reliable media.
Finally, there is the report that the grandmother said that Obama was born in Kenya. I listened to that tape and it is not clear that she, or the translators, understood the question to which she answer “yes.” And, if you listen to it, you will see that the person asking the questions never went on to ask confirming details, such as “what was the name of the hospital?”, “Do you recall the name of the doctor?”, “How long had Obama’s parents been in Kenya before the birth?” All these things would tend to confirm the truth of the claim that Obama was born in Kenya and at least confirm that Obama’s grandmother understood the question, but they were not asked. Why not? Because for the purposes of this interview, the interviewer only needed a “yes” and he did not need to be certain that the “yes” was said by a woman who understood the question. (The claimed assertions by other relatives that he was born in Kenya are not on tape and are only provided by WND.)
The Web magazine Slate, a liberal publication to be sure, says this about the grandmother interview:
“None of that stopped Berg from stoking the conspiracy theorists. On Oct. 16, an Anabaptist minister named Ron McRae called Sarah Hussein Obama, the president-elect’s 86-year-old paternal step-grandmother, at her home in Kenya. Two translators were on the line when McRae asked if the elder Obama was “present” when the president-elect was born. One of the translators says “yes.” McRae contacted Berg and gave him a partial transcript of the call with a signed affidavit. He opted not to include the rest of the call, in which he asks the question more directly—”Was he born in Mombassa?”—and the translators, finally understanding him, tell him repeatedly that the president-elect was born in Hawaii.”
Getting back to the assertion that the Obama birth document that has been posted was forged. I have already disproved the claim that the FACTS that the document states are not true. As I said, the officials in Hawaii plus the illogic of having a Kenya birth document in the Hawaii files disprove the claim that the information on the document is not true. As to the document being forged, it is hard to see why that would occur if the facts on the document are true. Also, the officials in Hawaii were sent images of Obama’s birth document by both FactCheck and Polifact, and they confirmed that the document is authentic.
Yet some still believe it is forged. This fellow from Hawaii has an answer for that:
A posting from Andrew Walden, publisher of the Hawaii Free Press, a right-wing blog based in Hawaii.
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/main/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/92/Barack-Obama-Born-in-Hawaii.aspx
Barack Obama: Born in Hawai`i
by Andrew Walden
It is time to focus on REAL issues, not imaginary ones.
A fairly impressive internet industry has sprung up claiming that Obama was born in either Kenya or Indonesia. This is nonsense, which distracts from the broadly unexplored story of Obama’s upbringing. This kind of nonsense has emerged because the McCain campaign chose not to raise the many questions about Barack Obama’s numerous hard-left alliances. Barack Obama was born in Hawai`i, August 4, 1961 at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu.
Obama’s birth certificate posted online is exactly the same birth certificate everybody in Hawai`i gets from the State Department of Health. It is not forged. There is nothing unusual about the design or the texture. In addition to the birth certificate, the August 13, 1961 Honolulu Advertiser also carries an announcement of Obama’s birth. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin also carries the same announcement. Both papers require submission of a copy of the birth certificate to print a birth announcement.
End Quote
Re: “Will Obama’s birth certificate be produced to silence the growing outrage, or will the media and the courts conspire to quash what should be front-line news every day until the question is resolved?”
To repeat, Hawaii issues only the Certification of Live Birth these days. It is accepted as proof of birth in the USA by the US State Department.
How do I know that? From this e-mail from the Department of Health in Hawaii:
Quotes
It is possible that we have records with more information but we issue only certified computer-generated certificates with certain necessary information to confirm a birth. We are the only agency that issues certified birth records for Hawaii
Aloha,
(Name removed)
End Quote
Re: “Now, most of us can produce our birth certificate for a driver’s license test, a job interview, or any number of causes, in a matter of minutes. Shouldn’t a candidate for the president be held to at least as high a standard as a teenager applying for permission to drive on American streets and highways?”
As noted, the certification of live birth is the official document used to get a driver’s license, to show at a job interview, or to apply for a passport. Unless your family has retained the original birth certificate, you cannot get it from the Department of Health of Hawaii these days. But that’s okay, the certification of live birth is a legal document, and it proves birth in Hawaii.
December 11th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Correcting a Typo:
Re: “Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 demolishes that argument. HWR 338-178 “allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence,” according to reports.”
Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth by issuing a Hawaii certification of live birth. BUT it does not allow that certification to contain a lie. Why not? If Hawaii certifications allowed people who were not born in Hawaii to show that they were born in Hawaii, then Hawaii would be making US citizens out of people who were not US citizens. Besides the law would have to include detailed language saying that the parents could claim any location in Hawaii that they wanted to claim as the location of birth. There is nothing like that in the legislation.
So the effect is this is that if you are born outside of Hawaii, then if your parents lived in Hawaii, they can get for you a Hawaii certification of live birth. BUT that document will always say after “location of birth” the place where the person was actually born.
Obama’ sister, born in Indonesia, has a Hawaii certification of live birth, but that document has “born in Indonesia,” or whatever city in Indonesia it was.
Obama’s certification of live birth says on it born in Hawaii several times, under location of birth (Honolulu), Island of birth (Oahu) and county of birth (Honolulu). Thus, if a Kenyan birth certificate was filed in the Hawaii birth records, Hawaii could not issue a Certification that says that Obama was born in Hawaii. Thus the document in Obama’s files is a Hawaii birth document, which is what the officials in Hawaii were indicating when they said that Obama’s certificate of live birth was accurate.
Next, why doesn’t Obama show his original birth certificate? I have been in e-mail correspondence with the Department of Health of Hawaii, and they say that they issue only the Certification of Live Birth these days. They do not allow the original documents to be removed from the files. They do not copy the original documents and send them out. They only issue the Certification of Live Birth, which is accepted by all departments and accepted by the US State Department for issuing passports.
Next the illogic of Obama having been born in Kenya.
Suppose that you were Obama’s mother and had given birth to him in Kenya. I do not believe that she did. In order to travel to Africa you had to get a Yellow Fever shot in those days, and it was a difficult and expensive trip. But one way to see how unlikely it was that she gave birth in Kenya is simply to imagine that she had given birth in Kenya and to put yourself in her shoes.
We know also from her high school friends that she was a popular girl and probably continued to have many friends throughout her life.
But apparently she told no one about one of the most interesting experiences of her life, which was that she went to Kenya when she was only 18 and gave birth in a hospital in Kenya. This would be a very unusual thing for an American woman to not do (to discuss an unusual hospital stay), and it (the hospital in Kenya and the trip to Kenya) would have been a good topic of discussion throughout her life. It would be hard to resist talking about giving birth in Kenya, and for that matter, it would be difficult to not discuss a trip to Kenya at all in 1961.
Yet no friends of Obama’s late mother have come forward saying “I remember she told me about that trip, about the hospital, about how hot it was” or anything about such a trip. Yet, during the election, that fact would have been of interest, and surely one of them would have written a letter to an editor or called a newspaper to mention the fact that Obama’s mother had said she gave birth in Kenya. But no one did.
It is difficult to imagine that Obama’s mother never mentioned the trip to Kenya or the birth in Kenya to her friends.
For that matter, she did not mention it to her son. For surely if he had known that he was born in Kenya, he would have let that fact slip sometime when he was attending school in Hawaii, and if he did, one or more of his friends would recall that he did. But none of his friends have mentioned that “he told me he was born in Kenya.” At least none of them have called a news conference or sent a letter to the editor.
So, we have at least one logical reason why it was unlikely that Obama’s mother gave birth in Kenya: She would have had to keep it secret for the rest of her life, and why would she do that. Did she think that her child would be elected president in 2008? Hardly.
There is also the absence of photographs of the infant Obama in Kenya or his mother in Kenya. To be sure, if Obama plotted to conceal his birth in Kenya, he might have been able over the years to destroy all the photographs. But how likely is it?
Then, the folks who claim that Obama was born in Kenya cannot show any official Kenyan documents to prove that he was born there or that his mother was in Kenya at the time of birth. This is explained by right wing blogs by the Kenyan government having sealed the files. But only right wing blogs and the “news agency” WND claims that the Kenyan government sealed the files. There is no confirmation of this from any reliable media.
Finally, there is the report that the grandmother said that Obama was born in Kenya. I listened to that tape and it is not clear that she, or the translators, understood the question to which she answer “yes.” And, if you listen to it, you will see that the person asking the questions never went on to ask confirming details, such as “what was the name of the hospital?”, “Do you recall the name of the doctor?”, “How long had Obama’s parents been in Kenya before the birth?” All these things would tend to confirm the truth of the claim that Obama was born in Kenya and at least confirm that Obama’s grandmother understood the question, but they were not asked. Why not? Because for the purposes of this interview, the interviewer only needed a “yes” and he did not need to be certain that the “yes” was said by a woman who understood the question. (The claimed assertions by other relatives that he was born in Kenya are not on tape and are only provided by WND.)
The Web magazine Slate, a liberal publication to be sure, says this about the grandmother interview:
“None of that stopped Berg from stoking the conspiracy theorists. On Oct. 16, an Anabaptist minister named Ron McRae called Sarah Hussein Obama, the president-elect’s 86-year-old paternal step-grandmother, at her home in Kenya. Two translators were on the line when McRae asked if the elder Obama was “present” when the president-elect was born. One of the translators says “yes.” McRae contacted Berg and gave him a partial transcript of the call with a signed affidavit. He opted not to include the rest of the call, in which he asks the question more directly—”Was he born in Mombassa?”—and the translators, finally understanding him, tell him repeatedly that the president-elect was born in Hawaii.”
Getting back to the assertion that the Obama birth document that has been posted was forged. I have already disproved the claim that the FACTS that the document states are not true. As I said, the officials in Hawaii plus the illogic of having a Kenya birth document in the Hawaii files disprove the claim that the information on the document is not true. As to the document being forged, it is hard to see why that would occur if the facts on the document are true. Also, the officials in Hawaii were sent images of Obama’s birth document by both FactCheck and Polifact, and they confirmed that the document is authentic.
Yet some still believe it is forged. This fellow from Hawaii has an answer for that:
A posting from Andrew Walden, publisher of the Hawaii Free Press, a right-wing blog based in Hawaii.
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/main/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/92/Barack-Obama-Born-in-Hawaii.aspx
Barack Obama: Born in Hawai`i
by Andrew Walden
It is time to focus on REAL issues, not imaginary ones.
A fairly impressive internet industry has sprung up claiming that Obama was born in either Kenya or Indonesia. This is nonsense, which distracts from the broadly unexplored story of Obama’s upbringing. This kind of nonsense has emerged because the McCain campaign chose not to raise the many questions about Barack Obama’s numerous hard-left alliances. Barack Obama was born in Hawai`i, August 4, 1961 at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu.
Obama’s birth certificate posted online is exactly the same birth certificate everybody in Hawai`i gets from the State Department of Health. It is not forged. There is nothing unusual about the design or the texture. In addition to the birth certificate, the August 13, 1961 Honolulu Advertiser also carries an announcement of Obama’s birth. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin also carries the same announcement. Both papers require submission of a copy of the birth certificate to print a birth announcement.
End Quote
Re: “Will Obama’s birth certificate be produced to silence the growing outrage, or will the media and the courts conspire to quash what should be front-line news every day until the question is resolved?”
To repeat, Hawaii issues only the Certification of Live Birth these days. It is accepted as proof of birth in the USA by the US State Department.
How do I know that? From this e-mail from the Department of Health in Hawaii:
Quotes
It is possible that we have records with more information but we issue only certified computer-generated certificates with certain necessary information to confirm a birth. We are the only agency that issues certified birth records for Hawaii
Aloha,
(Name removed)
End Quote
Re: “Now, most of us can produce our birth certificate for a driver’s license test, a job interview, or any number of causes, in a matter of minutes. Shouldn’t a candidate for the president be held to at least as high a standard as a teenager applying for permission to drive on American streets and highways?”
As noted, the certification of live birth is the official document used to get a driver’s license, to show at a job interview, or to apply for a passport. Unless your family has retained the original birth certificate, you cannot get it from the Department of Health of Hawaii these days. But that’s okay, the certification of live birth is a legal document, and it proves birth in Hawaii.
December 13th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Additionally, the simple fact is this: Even if Obama truly *was* born overseas and there’s a massive coverup to make him eligible — which is seriously doubtful, but let’s grant the assertion for the moment — there is nobody, under basic constitutional law, who would have standing to bring a claim upon which relief could be granted. Basically, in order to possess standing for a constitutional claim, one must have suffered specific harm from the transgression of a greater and distinct nature from the rest of the populace.
As such, this is a dead, dead issue. Obama does have a birth certificate. There is no conclusive evidence suggesting it has been altered or forged. There is a record of his birth in Hawai’i. There are two newspaper announcements of his birth. As such, the only way Obama *isn’t* a natural born citizen is if his mother and grandparents conspired with the Hawai’ian government to fake natural birth status on the off chance he ran for President someday. Yeah, that’s likely. :-p And even if there *was* a conspiracy, there is nobody in the United States who has a valid legal claim to challenge Obama’s eligibility to be President.
December 13th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I agree with Cato the Younger in the main point that Obama was born in the USA and never lost his citizenship.
A minor disagreement is that I think that John McCain would have standing to sue IF there were anything to sue about, but there isn’t, so it is entirely theoretical.
December 14th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I’m not a legal scholar, but it seems to me that every American is in a legal contract with Barack Obama, since he is entrusted to uphold the Constitution, and execute the office of president on behalf of the American people.
Furthermore, leaving aside the question of Obama’s birth (I’m not entirely convinced by your arguments) John McCain is not the only presidential candidate who would have legal claim to challenge Obama’s eligibility. Nader, Baldwin, Barr, etc., were on many ballots, and would have the same right to challenge as McCain.
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Since “the American people” are not a corporate entity, and since Barack Obama has not bilaterally negotiated specific terms of performance with every member of the electorate, Obama is under no contractual obligation to perform his duties honestly, etc. Holding a politician to his word in a court of law is an appealing idea, but with no mutual expressions of assent and no consideration, it’s a totally unworkable legal theory.
As to actual law: Standing is a complex legal doctrine that goes way back into the dim mists of early Anglo-American law. Suffice it to say: No, McCain, Nader, Baldwin, Barr, et al., since they are not a Constitutionally mentioned class of citizens, do NOT have special standing to challenge the legitimacy of Obama’s candidacy. After all, the Presidency could in theory be won by a write-in candidate; thus, the candidates have not been harmed as a unique group of individuals.
Additionally, there is the Constitutional question of whether the judiciary branch is empowered to invalidate or decide an election under its powers of equity. In spite of the Supreme Court’s unprecedented (and largely made up on the spot) reasoning in Bush v. Gore, the probable answer is no; the legal question is not judicial but political.
It *is* conceivable, depending on state constitution and electoral laws, that a candidate might be able to successfully sue, e.g., the Democratic Party of Hawai’i for certifying a fraudulent candidate. Even if the candidate prevailed, however, the award would be monetary damages, not any type of injunctive relief.
Finally, under the doctrine of separation of powers, it is the responsibility of the executive branch to enforce the decrees of the legislative and judicial branches according to its own compass of constitutional interpretation and policy judgments. Even in the astronomically improbable instance the judiciary were to make up a new standing rule out of thin air and declare Obama’s candidacy void, the executive (the President) would almost certainly refuse to enforce the judgment, based on his own interpretation of standing under the Constitution and based on his policy judgment that the election is a done deal and should not be used to destabilize the nation.
So, yeah. Even going against all facts and probabilities and assuming Obama is guilty as sin, there is not bat’s chance out of hell that anyone could bring a successful claim against him for this.
Now — it IS possible under the law to remove a politician from office for misconduct. The judiciary is not the way to do this; that’s the job of the legislature. For those who are truly sure that Obama conducted a fraudulent election, the appropriate channel of action is to push for impeachment proceedings, etc. in Congress.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Obama Birth Announcement Forged
http://home.att.net/~south.tower/ForgedObama1.htm