Interesting lawsuit

[NYBURBS]

Interesting... where it goes or the basis in fact I can't comment on. Interesting that a 30 year democrat and former assistant state AG filed this suit though:

[Oli]

Obama lawsuit tossed out in Philly
Posted on Tue, Oct 28, 2008

By Keith Phucas; Special To The News
PHILADELPHIA - A lawsuit filed in federal court challenging Sen. Barack Obama's United States citizenship was dismissed Friday.Federal Judge R. Barclay Surrick ruled the plaintiff, Lafayette Hill lawyer Philip J. Berg, lacked standing in the matter, and "as a result this court does not have jurisdiction in this case," the judge's legal analysis states.

Berg, who brought the suit in August, plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to his Web site, http://www.obamacrimes.com. The Times Herald was unable to reach him by phone for comment Monday.

Earlier this year, rumors began circulating about whether Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, as reported. In an effort to quell speculation, the senator's campaign posted a certificate of live birth on its Web site.

Berg's suit claims the Illinois senator was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and therefore is not eligible to run for president. As well, the action claims that even if Obama did have U.S. citizenship, he gave it up when his mother remarried and moved to Indonesia with her son.

Also, Berg requested expedited discovery to inspect a "vault" version of the senator's birth certificate. The Democratic National Committee and Federal Election Commission are also named as defendants in the legal action.

On Aug. 21, four days before the Democratic National Convention, Berg filed suit seeking to remove the Democratic candidate from the November ballot. The Lafayette Hill attorney asked the court for a temporary restraining order "prohibiting Obama from being formally confirmed as the Democratic Party nominee for president," according to court papers.

A month later, a lawyer representing Obama and the Democratic National Committee filed a joint motion in federal court to dismiss the lawsuit. The motion called the allegations "ridiculous and patently false," and argues the court lacks legal standing to challenge a presidential candidate's qualifications.

While Berg argued the case against Obama on constitutional grounds, in the motion to dismiss, Obama's attorney said the plaintiff must demonstrate a "specific and individualized injury" to prove standing in the case rather than a hypothetical one.

In a posting on his Web site dated Oct. 25, Berg questioned the judge's decision.

"This is a question of who has standing to uphold our Constitution. If I don't have standing, if you don't have standing, if your neighbor does-n't have standing to question the eligibility of an individual to be President of the United States-the Commander-in-Chief, the most powerful person in the world - then who does?" he wrote.

Earlier this year, a similar suit brought against Republican presidential candidate John McCain and the Republican National Committee claimed that McCain wasn't a "natural born" citizen having been born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father was serving in the military.

That suit was dismissed in July on grounds the plaintiff lacked standing in the case.

Keith Phucas can be reached at mailto: kphucas@timesherald.com or 610-272-2500, ext. 216.

http://www.newsofdelawarecounty.com/..._Story_2544869

[NYBURBS]

Yea the standing issue doesn't surprise me, though to be honest I would like to see the law grant any citizen standing to question the legality of a candidate for national office, especially the presidency. I am not sure who would have standing, other than perhaps other persons that ran for the democratic nomination, and perhaps the candidates of the other parties. It also still doesn't resolve some of the issue presented in that video.

[Oli]

Check this also-
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2...n_the_usa.html

[thx1138]

Hawaii was a state in 1961, when Obama was born. Any person born in the U.S. automatically is a "natural born citizen," said University of California Los Angeles law professor Eugene Volokh.

Even if a person is born outside the United States, courts have ruled any child born to at least one U.S. citizen is a U.S. citizen, Volokh said. Stanley Ann Dunham would have counted even if Obama's Kenyan father did not.

If this becomes an issue in a post-election eligibility challenge, expect a likely sticking point to be the legal definition in 1961 of how parents could be called U.S. citizens for this purpose, Volokh said. At the time Obama was born, the law stated that a person would be considered a "natural born citizen" if either parent was a citizen who had lived at least 10 years in the U.S., including five years after the age of 14—in other words, 19.

Dunham was three months shy of her 19th birthday when Obama was born. But subsequent acts of Congress relaxed the requirement to five years in the U.S., including just two years after the age of 14, meaning Dunham could have been 16 and still qualified even if Obama was born in another country, Volokh said. Congress made the law retroactive to 1952, doubly covering Obama.

Any legal challenge would have to argue that Congress can't make someone retroactively a citizen at birth, and prove Obama was born outside of the U.S. after all.

jjanega@tribune.com

[NYBURBS]

Yea well I read something different. Apparently the law of the United States was different at the time. Also people are alleging that this birth certificate is less then genuine. It is interesting that Obama refuses to release many of these records, as they would clear this issue up over night. A well stated post from another site:

# 26 Tony said said, on August 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 pm

In reply to Jeff, #24:

I enjoyed reading your comments. Here are some items that might be worth considering, however.

It is really important to get the legal facts correct in this case as all of the action items in the complaint WILL be heard by the Federal Court (by a judge appointed by President Clinton, incidentally) in at least one jurisdiction, and most likely by me-too suits in all the US Districts. For many people, there will be too much at stake to win or lose.
This is really a very serious, non-trivial problem which will be resolved by attorneys in one or more courts of law, not by public opinion, and certainly not by yours or mine.
However, I do understand the passions involved here!

1. Unfortunately, you are looking at CURRENT US law, not the law that was in force at the time that Barack (Barry) Obama (Soetoro)was born in 1961. If you do a quick search at a law library or on Lexis or Westlaw you can readily confirm this. Lots of blog sites have provided the actual law in force at the time - under which IF Barack was born outside of the country to an American citizen 18 years old he would NOT be a “Natural Born Citizen” under the Article II provision of the Constitution governing the eligibility requirements of the office of the President. This item is settled law and not currently debatable.

2. Assuming, however, that the 1961 State of Hawaii’s COLB (Certificate of Live Birth)issued to Barack Obama is correct, the concern over documentation then becomes one of how the birth was reported to the Department of Vital Statistics. If Mr. Obama were born in a Honolulu hospital, the hospital would automatically create the original written Birth Certificate, and submit it to the State. If, however, he was born, say, in Kenya, and his mother returned to the US shortly thereafter, his maternal grandparents could submit an original signed birth certificate to the State themselves, using their own address as the place of birth. This was not uncommon in Hawaii at that time. It would, of course, be a fraudulent filing, and a subsequent US Passport issued to the holder would also be fraudulently issued. It is, of course, possible, that Mr. Obama himself was told as a child that he was born in Hawaii and has assumed that this is true. However, it would not change the fact of non-US birth in this case. Unfortunately, it has been stated that a birth certificate was located in Kenya and that 3 of Mr. Obama’s paternal relatives were present at his birth in Africa.

3. Photographic records of Barack Obama’s Catholic school registration in Indonesia show his name as Barry Soetoro, his citizenship as Indonesian, and religion as Muslim. As it has been reported that Lolo Soetoro, his stepfather, legally adopted the child Barack/Barry, he would have become a dual citizen. Contemporary commentary at the time that Article II and subsequent enabling legislation was written (1789-1789) make it clear that the legal intent of the “Natural Born” clause was to eliminate the possibility of the President service two masters or states or sovereigns - potentially in conflict with each other - in particular if, as Commander-in-Chief the President would be caused to attack his other country and his other allegiance. This is clearly a potential conflict for and dual national citizen, whether born on US territory or overseas by two US parents, and a challenge at the US Supreme Court would be unclear as to its ruling in any other way.

4. When Mr. Obama traveled at 20 to Pakistan, that country was on the no-travel US State Department list (which included North Korea and Cuba, among other countries). To reach Pakistan, it is reported that he used his Indonesian Passport under the name Barry Soetoro. This action, if true, would threaten not only his ability to serve as President but also as a US Senator. See Lexis/Westlaw for applicable case law in District 1, among others.

5. More troubling, however, is that Mr. Obama has signed, under penalty of perjury, on his application to join the Illinois State Bar in front of the Illinois Supreme Court, that he never previously had nor used any other names. This, of course, is not true. The law also does not care whether his previous names were only used when he was a minor child (and this also assumes that he never had a passport issued by the Indonesian government and traveled under it to Pakistan).

6. For the counter argument concerning John McCain (and I am NOT a supporter of his), there is no equivalency. Under the previous as well as current law (in fact, going back to the creation of the American military in the 18th century), a person born to two US citizens, one of which is serving in the Armed Forces or at a US Embassy overseas, is automatically born as a “Natural Person”. The law is also settled on this matter. Again, see case law on Lexis.

The problem with non-attorneys is, of course, that people are generally not familiar with the law, nor the case law that actively rewrites the law itself. Normal logic and common sense often suggest one thing and a court of law finds another. In other words, the law is often an ass - but it is still the law, and wishful thinking will not make this issue go away. Let’s hope that the documentation can be provided quickly or this has the potential to develop into a real crisis within the Democratic Party and perhaps even at a Constitutional level.

Best wishes!

[Tiffany Anne]

6. For the counter argument concerning John McCain (and I am NOT a supporter of his), there is no equivalency. Under the previous as well as current law (in fact, going back to the creation of the American military in the 18th century), a person born to two US citizens, one of which is serving in the Armed Forces or at a US Embassy overseas, is automatically born as a “Natural Person”. The law is also settled on this matter. Again, see case law on Lexis.

No, the law is in fact not settled on the issue. He is a citizen, but the question if he is considered "natural born" is not. Congress passed a law in 1937 to cover gaps in the law that made the Canal Zone murky legally speaking. That law was passed after John McCain was born.

Because as you point out, who would have the right to bring the issue to court, this has never been settled. And whenever it gets brought up, you hear McCain supports dismiss it with "He was a POW! and his father was blah!! and his grandfather was BLAH blah!!!"

[hippifried]

SCOTUS should have ruled on this whole thing early, but Berg's frivolous suit kept it all buried in the lower courts. SCOTUS ruled on McCain's eligibility in 2000, & Goldwater's in 1964. It's a common practice.

The burdon of proof is always on the plaintiff. Berg had no evidence at all to back any of his claims. His discovery request was for documents that never existed & had no reason to ever exist. All official documents anywhere are officially filed somewhere. If they exist, they can be looked up & found.

The claim of a Kenyan birth is based on 2nd & 3rd hand transcripts of a conversation, through an interpreter or maybe multiple interpreters, with a person who wasn't witness to anything & was relating what they had been told by someone else. Everybody takes up a seat on an airline, including infants. There's no record of an infant on his mother's flight. There's no record of a child on her passport or a customs record of her debarking the plane in the US with an infant child. If any of Berg's contentions had merit, there'd be a record somewhere. The only record is his certificate of live birth from the State of Hawaii.

Part 2 of Berg's suit, that proper paperwork wasn't followed to naturalize Barack Obama after his return from Indonesia, is just as bogus. Whether adoption is implied or assumed under Indonesian law is irrelevant. The Indonesian laws that Berg cited as evidence that there had to be documents for him to discover were written after Obama was already back in Hawaii. There's no evidence of any adoption by Lolo Soetoro. As an employee of the Indonesian army, Lolo could put anything on a school enrolment form, to make things simpler for his wife & family, & nobody would have questioned it at the time. I've seen no evidence, & there's no reason to assume, that Barack Obama, from ages 6 through 10, ever had an Indonesian passport. The Indonesian government is as bureaucratic as any government & they never throw anything away either. Where's the records?

When Mr. Obama traveled at 20 to Pakistan, that country was on the no-travel US State Department list (which included North Korea and Cuba, among other countries). To reach Pakistan, it is reported that he used his Indonesian Passport under the name Barry Soetoro.

Huh? That would have been 1981 or '82. The Soviet Union was in the middle of their invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan was our ally, & we were shipping arms to the Mujihadeen (sp) through Pakistan. Isn't Pakistan still part of the British Commonwealth? I can see heightened customs due to all the opium, & maybe travel warnings due to unrest in the region, but a travel ban? I don't think so. Our focus in '81/'82 was on Libya, the Iran Iraq war, & the USSR.

Anyway:

Let’s hope that the documentation can be provided quickly or this has the potential to develop into a real crisis within the Democratic Party and perhaps even at a Constitutional level.

What documentation? Just like anybody else, he has a driver's licence, a voter registration card, a social security card, a birth certificate, & whatever credit & reward cards are in his wallet. He also has a passport & whatever ID the Senate issues, including his insurance card. All of that has been produced for anybody who has a need or even a want to see it. There's no green card or application for citizenship. There's no signed oath of allegience, like the one that Berg demanded be produced, that's required for naturalization. Why would there be? You can't provide something that never existed.

It's really too bad that this Berg clown is such an idiot that he got slapped down with this status ruling. I don't think he's smart enough to win an appeal. Hey, thanks asshole! You just fucked things up so that nobody's ever going to be able to challenge anybody for anything. Well... Maybe not, but it felt good to take some anger out on this goofball.