Obama Lawsuit GDG

Bob Gutermuth · Oct 11, 2008

"No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

K.Bullock · Oct 13, 2008

Bob Gutermuth said:
"No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

This is an interesting video ....just out too. Again... Bob whatever you do. Do not click this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA6_k3NtXZs

YardleyLabs · Oct 13, 2008

K.Bullock said:
This is an interesting video ....just out too. Again... Bob whatever you do. Do not click this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA6_k3NtXZs

This video is lots of air but no foundation . First, Obama released his birth certificate widely. He submitted it to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which is the body that reviews eligibility, to the DNC, and to the media. It is a fact that Hawaii, like many other states, does not allow the general public to obtain copies of birth certificates of other people to protect against identity theft. Accordingly, Berg and right wing websotes have gloried in their inability to obtain certified copies of the certificate and claimed the photocopies sent out by Obama are forgeries. The FEC is able to verify the birth certificate with the State of Hawaii and I hope they have done that with both Obama and McCain.

Berg argues further that it is irrelevant whether or not there is a birth certificate because Obama would have lost his citizenship if adopted by his Indonesian stepfather. He then presents evidence that his stepfather enrolled Obama in school saying he was Indonesian. In fact, if born in the US, the only way that Obama could lose his citizenship would be to renounce it. While Indonesia, according to Berg, does not permit dual citizenship. That's irrelevant since the US allows the citizen to make his own decision when he becomes an adult. This decision does not require any action by the person with dual citizenship. It simply requires that they not renounce their citizenship. (My son in law went through this and selected British citizenship at the request of his father. He subsequently went through naturalization to become a US citizen again when he married my daughter.)

Berg argues that Obama is refusing to provide the documents he requested and using a "technicality" to avoid responding. What he doesn't say is that the documents that he has requested, other than a copy of the birth certificate, would only exist if in fact Obama was not a citizen and went through the naturalization process as Berg charges. FWIW the "technicalities" being argued are that Berg has no standing to pursue a case directly against Obama since eligibility is determined through an official process and that Berg has presented no information whatsoever to suggest that he has a factual basis for his lawsuit. What Berg has sought are rights for full discovery which is a non-trivial, highly disruptive process. If, in fact, Berg has a case, he should be suing the FEC and the State election boards to have Obama removed from the ballot.

As an interesting sidenote, Berg filed amicus curiae briefs in support of litigation that would have prevented Texas electors from voting for Cheney in the 2000 election since all documents indicated he was a Texas resident. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits electors from voting from two inhabitants of their own state in selecting the Pres/VP. The courts dismissed the case, basically saying that plaintiffs had no legal standing to sue and that Cheney could say he lived wherever he wanted. Does Berg just like the publicity he gets in these cases?

K.Bullock · Oct 13, 2008

[

QUOTE=YardleyLabs;345522] (My son in law went through this and selected British citizenship at the request of his father. He subsequently went through naturalization to become a US citizen again when he married my daughter.)

And we are supposed to take your word for .. a man with admitted ties to Monarchists?

(just kidding BTW)

Does Berg just like the publicity he gets in these cases?

heh yeah it sure looks like it.

Still some interesting things were mentioned that have yet to be discussed. For instance why will they not provide the court with with his birth certificate and be done with it? And yes he also investigated Cheney some say rightly so, if you remember Cheney changed his state of residence just prior to the the election. Almost as distasteful as Obama jumping ship from his church after it became an election issue.
And what about this link between Annenberg and fact check.org? That is a little disturbing since many are stating as gospel truth anything posted on fact check .org.

This link doesn't make much issue about Annenberg and fact check. But the connections here are disturbing.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/o....com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1125136&srvc=home&position=rated

Next time I will write "Jeff whatever you do don't click this link." lol

YardleyLabs · Oct 13, 2008

K.Bullock said:
[
...

Still some interesting things were mentioned that have yet to be discussed. For instance why will they not provide the court with with his birth certificate and be done with it? And yes he also investigated Cheney some say rightly so, if you remember Cheney changed his state of residence just prior to the the election. Almost as distasteful as Obama jumping ship from his church after it became an election issue.
And what about this link between Annenberg and fact check.org? That is a little disturbing since many are stating as gospel truth anything posted on fact check .org.

This link doesn't make much issue about Annenberg and fact check. But the connections here are disturbing.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/o....com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1125136&srvc=home&position=rated

Next time I will write "Jeff whatever you do don't click this link." lol

Berg talks about the "Annenberg Foundation of Chicago" as being involved with FactCheck.org and Obama. The Annenberg Foundation is actually located in Pennsylvania and controlled by Mrs. Annenberg, a McCain supporter. They fund factcheck.org which, when you review the articles, posts about as many stories exposing Democrat misrepresentations as Republican ones. The connection to Chicago and Ayers dates back to the late 1990's when the Foundation committed almost $400 million to experimental programs to try to improve urban education. Proposals were received from all over the ocuntry and William Ayers was one of three people authoring a proposal from Chicago that was awarded a grant of $40+ million over a five year period. In accordance with the terms of the grant, an independent Board of Directors was appointed and Obama was the first Chairman. He resigned after a couple of years to run for office. At the time of his appointment, Obama served on the boards of two other organizations involved with community and educational programs. His appointment to the "Annenberg Community Challenge" was the basis of his "relationship" to Ayers, the original proposal author. The grant ended and the program was closed down at the end of the five year period in 2001.

With respect to Ayers -- aka the terrorist -- the public record is pretty clear. He was directly involved in the weatherman, an organization which undertook "direct action" against the Vietnam War and the draft and was linked to various bombings. He was arrested for these but all charges were dropped -- allegedly because of the mistaken destruction/loss of evidence. He is, as I understand it, a respected professor who remains very liberal and is very active in philanthropic activities in Chicago where his past is well known but treated as something that happened 40 years ago.

Our wounds, as a country, from the Vietnam War will probably not be healed until all of us who lived through that period are dead and gone. Among the best things that McCain has done were his actions to help normalize relations with Vietnam.

floridascuba · Oct 13, 2008

even if Obama was born in Hawaii, I read that he is still not a citizen due to the fact that his mother had to be a citizen for 10 years 5 of which after she has been 16. She had Obama at 18. Of course that law has since changed, but interesting none of the less.

Larkin · Oct 13, 2008

floridascuba said:
even if Obama was born in Hawaii, I read that he is still not a citizen due to the fact that his mother had to be a citizen for 10 years 5 of which after she has been 16. She had Obama at 18. Of course that law has since changed, but interesting none of the less.

His mother was born to American citizens in Kansas. Pray tell, why would she not be considered an "American citizen?"

floridascuba · Oct 13, 2008

Never said she wasn't a citizen. like I said from what I read online, she had to be an american citizen for 5 years after 16 for Obama to be qualified. supposedly this was what was on the books back when he was born and since has been changed.

Larkin · Oct 13, 2008

Obama was born to an American citizen in the United States. The law to which you refer went off the books January 13, 1941, more than twenty years before Obama's birth. In fact, before his mother was born!

I had to search a little to find this information (on something other than a blog) and finally found it in the Consular Services section of the US State Dept. in regards to children born to an American mother and a non-American father. Children born out of wedlock to an American father and a non-American mother (think Vietnam) can also be considered U.S. citizens, but the bar is a little higher to cross.

YardleyLabs · Oct 13, 2008

floridascuba said:
Never said she wasn't a citizen. like I said from what I read online, she had to be an american citizen for 5 years after 16 for Obama to be qualified. supposedly this was what was on the books back when he was born and since has been changed.

I believe what you are referring to is a requirement where a child is born outside of the U.S. and one parent is a citizen while the other is not. If the child is born from about 1952 - 1986, the citizen parent must have lived at least 10 years in the U.S. including 5 years after the age of 14. For children born more recently the requirement if 5 years residence in the U.S. of which at least 2 are after the age of 14. Obama's mother lived her whole life in the U.S. until she moved to Indonesia with her second husband. However, she was only 18 at the time of Obama's birth. Right wing sites and Philip Berg are promoting the argument that Obama was actually born in Kenya in which case he would not qualify as a citizen unless subsequently naturalized. In that case he would also not meet the Constitutional test for becoming President. You can see a story about the whole citizenship issue at http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gcwFmRs78Gz6-31o50qhACm-Y24AD93NRJE00.

Terry Britton · Oct 13, 2008

Bob Gutermuth said:
"No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

Going with the definition of Natural Born Citizen, you have to be born a citizen naturally without the aid of epidural, AI, pain killers, C-Section, ect.....

I was in a debate on another forum when the medical and legal people jumped in. If you go by the strict definition of "natural", there are a lot of us who would not qualify to be president. The law needs to be updated. It will be interesting if this law is actually enforced.

Terry Britton · Oct 13, 2008

Larkin said:
His mother was born to American citizens in Kansas. Pray tell, why would she not be considered an "American citizen?"

The question is not whether she is an American Citizen, but did she have pain killers, an epidural, a C-section, or any other un-natural aid during Obama's birth?

I am glad I could clarify this.

Bob Gutermuth · Oct 13, 2008

Natural born is the langauge of the Constitution. The opposite is a naturalized citizen

Terry Britton · Oct 13, 2008

Bob Gutermuth said:
Natural born is the langauge of the Constitution. The opposite is a naturalized citizen

But if it goes to a jury, they will have to go by the definitions in the dictionaries. It can get interesting going by the "letter of the law" rather than the spirit of the law.

Bob Gutermuth · Oct 13, 2008

I'd bet there is some precedent from SCOTUS dating back to the first few Presidents.

Henry V · Oct 14, 2008

I really can't believe that this type of discussion is occuring here much less anywhere else on the internets, but nothing is surprising these days I guess.

Bob Gutermuth said:
Natural born is the langauge of the Constitution. The opposite is a naturalized citizen

It seems that this would be the view of a strict constitutional constructionist who interprets the constitution as the founders intended. On the other hand, the point of view of an activist judge or attorney would be to interpret the constitution as a living document which might allow the more liberal interpretation as suggested by Terry.

Bob Gutermuth · Oct 14, 2008

I think that if this question would reach SCOTUS they would agree with the original language not with some ambulance chasers nuances.

YardleyLabs · Oct 14, 2008

Bob Gutermuth said:
I think that if this question would reach SCOTUS they would agree with the original language not with some ambulance chasers nuances.

Unfortunately, at this point I think the court would agree with anything that helped a Republican and then couch the language to make it clear that the opinion should never be used as a precedent.

K.Bullock · Oct 14, 2008

YardleyLabs said:
Unfortunately, at this point I think the court would agree with anything that helped a Republican and then couch the language to make it clear that the opinion should never be used as a precedent.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

We have people out here running around in ACorn shirts registering families along with dogs. They registered one poor son of a gun 73 times.
The Republicans need all the help they can get. If the dems are playing like that.

YardleyLabs · Oct 14, 2008

The situation with ACORN is interesting. By law, organizations that help people to register to vote must turn in every signed form regardless of whether they believe it is accurate or fraudulent. That became an issue in my area a couple of years ago when a Republican sponsored registration program was found to have destroyed all applications where the would be registrant indicated that they were Democrats rather than Republicans.

The mission of ACORN is to register poor and minority voters. As such, it is an organization feared by Republicans since newly registered voters vote more frequently than would otherwise be expected and poor and minority voters vote for Democrats more often than Republicans. The contrast, of course, is that Republicans are very aggressive at running registration efforts that set up at county fairs, suburban shopping malls, etc.

ACORN itself has an interesting take on its procedures at http://acorn.org/index.php?id=12439&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=22383&tx_ttnews[backPid]=12340&cHash=ef14f35f55.

Given that ACORN registered 1.3 million new voters, I would expect that every effort will be made to inspect and prevent those registrants from being approved. However, in my election district if you walk in to vote you must prove your identity if you are not already known to the judges of elections and anyone whose name and address does not match their registration will be excluded from voting. When a district in Ohio, which engaged in systematic efforts to exclude voters in the last election, sets aside thousands of registrations without even checking them for accuracy, I question the motives of those involved.

Obama Lawsuit GDG

Bob Gutermuth

K.Bullock

YardleyLabs

K.Bullock

YardleyLabs

floridascuba

Larkin

floridascuba

Larkin

YardleyLabs

Terry Britton

Terry Britton

Bob Gutermuth

Terry Britton

Bob Gutermuth

Henry V

Bob Gutermuth

YardleyLabs

K.Bullock

YardleyLabs

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