Brian Cherry, writing for The New Media Journal, says "The question regarding Barack Obama's eligibility to run for President based on questions regarding his status as natural born United States citizen has reached the Hawaiian Supreme Court."
Andy Martin, an Illinois journalist and Democrat, has petitioned the court to expedite the release of Obama's birth records so that the issue can be put to rest once and for all. Cherry writes, "For months there has been speculation about Barack's birth status among other issues associated with his birth certificate. This has been helped along by the campaign's reluctance to produce uncontestable records of the Senators birth and status as a natural born citizen of the United States. When the Obama campaign did release a scan of Obama's birth certificate its noticeable lack of an embossed seal among other inconsistencies with proper Hawaiian birth certificates simply fueled the speculation of critics."
Now, it's no secret that I'm anti-Obama and that I would love to see John McCain win the presidency on November 4. But this particular issue has always struck me as kind of strange. The first question that pops into my head is, "Isn't there a process for determining eligibility as soon as someone files the paperwork to become a candidate?" Wouldn't this responsibility fall on the shoulders of the FEC?
Mr. Cherry contributes to the continued speculation about the birth certificate, saying, "Presidential candidate Barack Obama has also indirectly interjected himself into the situation. During the same week that Mr. Martin's request was made to the Hawaiian Supreme court, Barack is suspending his campaign for a few days in order to visit his sick grandmother in Hawaii. Unnamed sources claim that he is bringing along a team of lawyers on this visit to an ailing relative. The Obama campaign has not yet answered our query regarding whether Barack has brought a legal team with him to Hawaii."
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if he brought lawyers with him. We're less than two weeks out from an election and I imagine every word he utters and every action he takes is based on legal advice.
Politifact.com, a fact check web site, says, "Unlike other documents, Hawaii birth certificates aren't public record. Only family members can request copies, so when the campaign declined to give us one, we were stalled." After the Obama campaign released a copy of the birth certificate, however, Politifact says they went a step further: "We e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, which maintains such records, to ask if it was real. ‘It's a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,' spokesman Janice Okubo told us." Still, questions persisted.
Politifact says, "When the official documents were questioned, we went looking for more answers." "If this document is forged," Politifact says, "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."
There are plenty of things about Senator Obama that concern me, but his birth certificate is not one of them.
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http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2008/08/proof-barack-obama-birth-certificate-is.html
That's the problem Joe, it ought to BE "questionable". (In a Constitutional Republic, that is)
~Franklin D. Roosevelt~
~Franklin D. Roosevelt~
~Franklin D. Roosevelt~
~Franklin D. Roosevelt~
Exactly...think about this logically for three seconds. In order for the Birth Certificate to be a fake, everyone...from the State of Hawaii to the State of Illinois all the way up to the FBI, the CIA, and even...yes...BUSH AND CHENEY would have to be in on the conspiracy. Forging a legal document is a criminal offense. If this was a REAL ISSUE...if the birth certificate was a forgery...then we would be seeing this case in criminal court, not civil court.
Does anyone think for one second that if the birth certificate was a fake that this corrupt administration would NOT have the FBI investigating it? What easier way to win the election that to launch a criminal investigation? You wouldn't leave this to a wacko self-promoting attorney that has been cited for ethics charges!
"Unnamed sources claim that he is bringing along a team of lawyers on this visit to an ailing relative." -- "unnamed sources?" What a load of crap, Greg.
"We e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, which maintains such records, to ask if it was real. ‘It's a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,' spokesman Janice Okubo told us." Still, questions persisted. What questions?
Incidently, just to throw some gasoline on this big friggin' bonfire you've got going here, Greg, Reich Wingers on Fox News attempted to provide some cover for the $150,000.00 Sarah Palin wardrobe story by going on the attack: why did Barack Hussein Obama fly to Hawaii in a 767 campaign plane, and not a commercial flight? Shocking.
Here's a question for you: why doesn't John McCain release his medical records. I quote from his appearance in Pennsylvania:
"You know, I think you may have noticed that Senator Obama's supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about Western Pennsylvania lately. And you know, I couldn't agree with them more... I couldn't disagree with you more... I couldn't agree with you more than the fact that Western Pennsylvania is the most patriotic, most god-loving, most, most patriotic part of America, and this is a great part of the country."
FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.
The complications that have apparently stirred up the bees in Greg's bonnet were manufactured by that "piece of work," Philip J. Berg. Lessee, looking back on his resume, we have --
2001: a lawsuit demanding the disbarment of Supreme Court Justices O'Connor, Thomas, and Scalia, because they refused to recuse themselves from the Florida election results case.
Result: dismissed. Stupid.
2005: a lawsuit claiming Bush administration complicity in the 9/11/2001 attacks. (A quote from his brief, all caps in the original: "IF THERE WAS NO GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY IN THE 9-11 ATTACKS, WHY DID DEFENDANTS LIE REPEATEDLY ABOUT ABUNDANT ADVANCE WARNINGS?")
Result: dismissed. Stupid.
Here is the problem with this. If he gets elected and he is NOT a US citizen, then the part of the constitution that says you MUST be a US citizen to be president gets destroyed and is no longer enforceable and any one can come from somewhere saying they are a US citizen and we will have absolutely no recourse to prevent that person from running.
I don't care who bring a lawsuit, this nation deserves to know that it is electing a US citizen as president.
How is BHO "changing" the tone of government for good by not confirming he is a US citizen? It makes perfect sense to produce the document to show that he is indeed not like the rest of Washington. If he does not, the he confirms that he is just the same raised to the next level.
Consequently, do you believe like Philip J. Berg believes that 9/11 was an inside job, that our own government was responsible? His lawsuit for that one was dismissed.
"Because it's stupid, that's why."
Brilliant logic.
Your question to me is irrelevant; I am not, nor have I ever been a supporter or defender of Mr. McCain.
My question remains; Why not just produce the documents in the court of law? What is to be gained by allowing such a thing to go on, if Mr. Obama can easily demonstrate his place of birth? Not doing so seems stupid to me.
Politifact says they went a step further: "We e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, which maintains such records, to ask if it was real. ‘It's a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,' spokesman Janice Okubo told us." Still, questions persisted.
This reminds me of Bush's "AWOL" scandal that wasn't, and I expect it to linger into an Obama presidency. Maybe some right-wing version of Dan Rather will "create" a Kenyan birth certificate right before he runs for re-election.
Linda W., Oct 23, 2008, 6:04pm EDT
Jack said something about neocons getting desperate. I said I didn't know if Andy was a Republican or Democrat. Hello! I missed that part. I was reading through it quickly to see if there was any new information.
So what talking points did I "spew" in here?
Gosh, it must be painful to have two Democrats filing legal documents against a Democrat who is running for president.
And yes, I do care if he isn't legally able to run and is thumbing his nose at our constitution. So EXCUSE ME!
The article
Obviously, there is something to hide. It is alleged in one of the suits filed, that he won't make his school records available because they show he received educational aid and grants under his foreign student status.
Providing these documents would make this all go away. There has to be some reason for his refusal to do so. That action only fuels the fires of suspicion.
He asks us to hire him for the nation's highest job, yet won't provide the documentation that is required in any hiring process.
My understanding is that Indonesia did not recognize dual citizenship so any person seeking indonesian citizenship would need to renounce all other held citizenships.
Read the article before you jump on in simply because the author does not support Obama's candidacy The article clearly states that Greg accepts the copy of Obama,'s birth certificate as valid and that he was born in the United States.
Greg should be complimented on his ability to accept evidence that his political preferences might make him reluctant to accept.
Greg, you have my compliments and thanks for attempting convince others that this is a not a valid issue.
That is illogical. In weighing the merits of disclosure, it is the serving of the public interest that should determine the need, and not individual political bias.
In the one case, we have a 72-year-old cancer survivor, who has been unsteady, on occasion, on the campaign trail, and who has chosen a running mate of no experience at the national level. Medical records? Won't release them.
In the other case, we have a candidate who won't respond to nut-job lawyer demands to produce additional copies of documents that are, in fact, already out there. Ok, I think they're out there, but I haven't examined the emboss close up. You know, the emboss can be faked. You can order them online. Talk about a hornet's nest! Whoo-boy, we've stirred one up now!
OK. Gather is the internet right? So, this is as good a place as any to start crazy unsubstantiated rumors, right? Here is one. Spread it around, maybe some nutjob journalist will take it up. Sarah Palin is an alien. I dont mean an illegal alien from another country, I mean a real alien like from a UFO. What is my proof? Um, have you seen here hair? All those winks are actually code for the waiting alien invasion force. Also she has supernatural powers. Why else would McCain have picked her? QED
He has already provided a legal copy of his birth certificate. It has been handled, studied, and reviewed by plenty of people whom have all came to the same conclusion. Obama has not moral or ethical requirement to acknowledge this ridiculous nonsense, any more than McCain did when two different lawsuits were filed against him. In both cases, McCain's lawyers got the cases thrown out.
I have a question for you: why SHOULD he respond to Berg? The only people who take Berg seriously are wingnuts on the internet. No legitimate news sources are giving serious coverage to the story. Even FOX NEWS is ignoring this. The FBI, CIA, and the McCain campaign are all ignoring it. It's in Obama's interest to NOT validate Berg with a response.
Think of the bullies you knew in school. They thrived on being acknowledged and having power over you by forcing you to defensd yourself. But when you just ignored them and didn't validate them, they moved on. If you validate a flake like Berg with real answers, you actually give him MORE power because now you have acknowledged him.
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF HAWAI‘I
ANDY MARTIN, Petitioner,
vs.
LINDA LINGLE, Governor, State of Hawai‘i;
DR. CHIYOME FUKINO, in her capacity as Director
of the Department of Health, State of Hawai‘i; and
THE HONORABLE BERT I. AYABE, JUDGE OF THE CIRCUIT COURT
OF THE FIRST CIRCUIT, STATE OF HAWAI‘I, Respondents.
ORIGINAL PROCEEDING
(CIV. NO. 08-1-2147)
ORDER
(By: Moon, C.J., Levinson, Nakayama, Acoba, and Duffy, JJ.)
Upon consideration of the petition for a writ of mandamus filed by petitioner Andy Martin and the papers in support, it appears that the issuance by the Department of Health of a certified copy of a vital statistics record to petitioner was not mandatory, but involved the exercise of discretion and judgment. See HRS § 338-18(b) (Supp. 2007) (The department shall disclose vital statistics records to those persons enumerated in HRS § 338-18(b)(1) through (13); otherwise, "[t]he department shall not permit inspection of public health statistics records, or issue a certified copy of any such record or part thereof, unless it is satisfied that the applicant has a direct and tangible interest in the record."). Therefore, petitioner is not entitled to mandamus relief against the respondent public officials. See In Re Disciplinary Bd. of Hawaii Supreme Court, 91 Hawai‘i 363, 368, 984 P.2d 688, 693 (1999) (Mandamus relief is available to compel an official to perform a duty allegedly owed to an individual only if the individual's claim is clear and certain, the official's duty is ministerial and so plainly prescribed as to be free from doubt, and no other remedy is available.); Salling v. Moon, 76 Hawai‘i 273, 274 n. 3, 874 P.2d 1098, 1099 n.3 (1994) ("A duty is ministerial where the law prescribes and defines the duty to be performed with such precision and certainty as to leave nothing to the exercise of discretion and judgment.").
It further appears that the Hawai‘i Rules of Civil Procedure and the Rules of the Circuit Courts of the State of Hawai‘i do not provide petitioner with a clear and indisputable right to a telephonic hearing or an expedited hearing in Civil No. 08-1-2147. Scheduling a hearing for November 7, 2008 and requiring petitioner to personally appear at the hearing was within the discretion of the respondent judge and was not a flagrant and manifest abuse of discretion. Therefore, petitioner is not entitled to mandamus relief against the respondent judge. See Kema v. Gaddis, 91 Hawai‘i 200, 204-05, 982 P.2d 334, 338-39 (1999) (A writ of mandamus is an extraordinary remedy that will not issue unless the petitioner demonstrates a clear and indisputable right to relief and a lack of alternative means to redress adequately the alleged wrong or obtain the requested action. Such writs are not intended to supersede the legal discretionary authority of the lower courts, nor are they intended to serve as legal remedies in lieu of normal appellate procedures. Where a court has discretion to act, mandamus will not lie to interfere with or control the exercise of that discretion, even when the judge has acted erroneously, unless the judge has exceeded his or her jurisdiction, has committed a flagrant and manifest abuse of discretion, or has refused to act on a subject properly before the court under circumstances in which it has a legal duty to act.). Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition for a writ of mandamus is denied.
DATED: Honolulu, Hawai‘i, October 22, 2008.
http://www.state.hi.us/jud/opinions/sct/2008/29414ord.htm
I have to admit this has been the most interesting arguement on Gather I've personally seen in some time. So, hypothetically, Obama is not a real American, and become President than so can I. My first role as your President after OBAMA leaves and I become your first Canadian President to be elected, would be to request membership in Canada, and you should be glad for that because Canada would have to extend health care, and as Canadian citizens travelling to Cuba would be allowed again. More so, you could travel any where in the world and people will like you. You'll no longer be involved in wars abroad because the American army will become apart of the Royal Canadian Forces and become peace keepers...a better world will be born becaues Obama is not a real American (I mean if he is not a real American) and opens the door for other foreign born candidates gto be president...well, perhaps it will the terminator that willl benefit from this before me.
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrs2006/Vol06_Ch0321-0344/HRS0338/HRS_0338-0017_0008.HTM
"[§338-17.8] Certificates for children born out of State. (a) Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child..." It is also possible to file an application to change a birth certificate at any subsequent time - for example, adding the father's name later or changing the child's name on the certificate. That is why the "vault" original version is needed to substantiate any claim. I certainly have never seen it and wish Mr. Obama would deign to present it. John McCain was sued back in February for the same issue by at least two individuals (only different circumstances: born in Panama Canal Zone-US territory to active military US citizen parent) but that would be the RNC's problem to ensure that their candidate is properly vetted. Let's hope they thought to ask. The court case was dismissed in McCain's instance. The issue is not whether he is a US citizen but a "natural born" US citizen. He doesn't even have to be a high school grad or speak English according to the US constitution but he must at least be a "natural born" US citizen. Maybe it seems like a little technicality but sorry, it is the constitution. Perhaps Mr. Obama does not present such documentation because it does not exist. Such audacity - but we hope it ain't so.
How I'll run the government
To me it is not so much Obama, and I myself do not think there is much to this, but the whole surrounding issue disturbs me. Why the secrecy from the public? Since it is a public office, our votes, contributions, and for our just old peace of mind, why isn't the public allowed to review them? How do we know that those responsible are even doing that job (and how) to ensure the Constitution is being upheld? It would seem the fox is watching the hen-house when it comes to this process, and I for one don't think any political party can be trusted with it alone, or allowed to withhold that proof from those they serve.
Pettiness, that kills me.
"There are plenty of things about Senator Obama that concern me, but his birth certificate is not one of them."
Thank you for being a voice of reason Greg. I remember how stupid I thought it was when some fringe Democrats tried saying John McCain wasn't a citizen because he was born in Panama. I stood up then and called as many of them as I could on it.
The only problem is that your partial quotes from Factcheck.org and Politifact.com just fanned the flames for the conspiracy theory nut bags. so here's the entire articles from those entities.
Factcheck.org http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
Born in the U.S.A.
August 21, 2008
Updated: August 26, 2008
The truth about Obama's birth certificate.
Summary
In June, the Obama campaign released a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate to quell speculative charges that he might not be a natural-born citizen. But the image prompted more blog-based skepticism about the document's authenticity. And recently, author Jerome Corsi, whose book attacks Obama, said in a TV interview that the birth certificate the campaign has is "fake."
We beg to differ. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.
Analysis
Since we first wrote about Obama's birth certificate on June 16, speculation on his citizenship has continued apace. Some claim that Obama posted a fake birth certificate to his Web page. That charge leaped from the blogosphere to the mainstream media earlier this week when Jerome Corsi, author of a book attacking Obama, repeated the claim in an Aug. 15 interview with Steve Doocy on Fox News.
Corsi: Well, what would be really helpful is if Senator Obama would release primary documents like his birth certificate. The campaign has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website. How is anybody supposed to really piece together his life?
Doocy: What do you mean they have a "false birth certificate" on their Web site?
Corsi: The original birth certificate of Obama has never been released, and the campaign refuses to release it.
Doocy: Well, couldn't it just be a State of Hawaii-produced duplicate?
Corsi: No, it's a -- there's been good analysis of it on the Internet, and it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop. It's a fake document that's on the Web site right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce.
Corsi isn't the only skeptic claiming that the document is a forgery. Among the most frequent objections we saw on forums, blogs and e-mails are:
The birth certificate doesn't have a raised seal.
It isn't signed.
No creases from folding are evident in the scanned version.
In the zoomed-in view, there's a strange halo around the letters.
The certificate number is blacked out.
The date bleeding through from the back seems to say "2007," but the document wasn't released until 2008.
The document is a "certification of birth," not a "certificate of birth."
Recently FactCheck representatives got a chance to spend some time with the birth certificate, and we can attest to the fact that it is real and three-dimensional and resides at the Obama headquarters in Chicago. We can assure readers that the certificate does bear a raised seal, and that it's stamped on the back by Hawaii state registrar Alvin T. Onaka (who uses a signature stamp rather than signing individual birth certificates). We even brought home a few photographs.
The certificate has all the elements the State Department requires for proving citizenship to obtain a U.S. passport: "your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records." The names, date and place of birth, and filing date are all evident on the scanned version, and you can see the seal above.
The document is a "certification of birth," also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents' hometowns. The short form is printed by the state and draws from a database with fewer details. The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department. We tried to ask the Hawaii DOH why they only offer the short form, among other questions, but they have not given a response.
The scan released by the campaign shows halos around the black text, making it look (to some) as though the text might have been pasted on top of an image of security paper. But the document itself has no such halos, nor do the close-up photos we took of it. We conclude that the halo seen in the image produced by the campaign is a digital artifact from the scanning process.
We asked the Obama campaign about the date stamp and the blacked-out certificate number. The certificate is stamped June 2007, because that's when Hawaii officials produced it for the campaign, which requested that document and "all the records we could get our hands on" according to spokesperson Shauna Daly. The campaign didn't release its copy until 2008, after speculation began to appear on the Internet questioning Obama's citizenship. The campaign then rushed to release the document, and the rush is responsible for the blacked-out certificate number. Says Shauna: "[We] couldn't get someone on the phone in Hawaii to tell us whether the number represented some secret information, and we erred on the side of blacking it out. Since then we've found out it's pretty irrelevant for the outside world." The document we looked at did have a certificate number; it is 151 1961 - 010641.
Some of the conspiracy theories that have circulated about Obama are quite imaginative. One conservative blogger suggested that the campaign might have obtained a valid Hawaii birth certificate, soaked it in solvent, then reprinted it with Obama's information. Of course, this anonymous blogger didn't have access to the actual document and presents this as just one possible "scenario" without any evidence that such a thing actually happened or is even feasible.
We also note that so far none of those questioning the authenticity of the document have produced a shred of evidence that the information on it is incorrect. Instead, some speculate that somehow, maybe, he was born in another country and doesn't meet the Constitution's requirement that the president be a "natural-born citizen."
We think our colleagues at PolitiFact.com, who also dug into some of these loopy theories put it pretty well: "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."
In fact, the conspiracy would need to be even deeper than our colleagues realized. In late July, a researcher looking to dig up dirt on Obama instead found a birth announcement that had been published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961:
The announcement was posted by a pro-Hillary Clinton blogger who grudgingly concluded that Obama "likely" was born Aug. 4, 1961 in Honolulu.
Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday. We suggest that those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat. The evidence is clear: Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A.
Update, August 26: We received responses to some of our questions from the Hawaii Department of Health. They couldn't tell us anything about their security paper, but they did answer another frequently-raised question: why is Obama's father's race listed as "African"? Kurt Tsue at the DOH told us that father's race and mother's race are supplied by the parents, and that "we accept what the parents self identify themselves to be." We consider it reasonable to believe that Barack Obama, Sr., would have thought of and reported himself as "African." It's certainly not the slam dunk some readers have made it out to be.
When we asked about the security borders, which look different from some other examples of Hawaii certifications of live birth, Kurt said "The borders are generated each time a certified copy is printed. A citation located on the bottom left hand corner of the certificate indicates which date the form was revised." He also confirmed that the information in the short form birth certificate is sufficient to prove citizenship for "all reasonable purposes."
–by Jess Henig, with Joe Miller
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/
Obama's birth certificate: Final chapter
By Amy Hollyfield
Published on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 05:21 p.m.
SUMMARY: Since we published Obama's birth certificate, questions about its authenticity have been frequent and fierce. After reviewing the evidence, we're confident in our rulings.
It started as a whisper, a trickle of nagging doubt.
“As a concerned citizen, I’m wondering if there isn’t something fishy going on with the Obama certificate.”
“I have serious doubts about the purported 'birth certificate’ you were sent.”
“Something doesn’t smell right.”
Soon, e-mails and blog posts were flying. As the pace quickened, the tone sharpened.
“You should be apologizing ... for your misinformation regarding BO bogus birth certificate, that you claimed was genuine!”
At full throttle, the accusations are explosive and unrelenting, the writers emboldened by the anonymity and reach of the Internet.
And you can’t help but ask: How do you prove something to people who come to the facts believing, out of fear or hatred or maybe just partisanship, that they’re being tricked?
• • •
Sen. Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a document PolitiFact.com had sought for months. Countless chain e-mails, seeking to paint him as a secret Muslim, speculated that his full name included Muhammed (or Mohammed). Some said he is not an American citizen.
As a fact-checking news Web site, we went to extensive lengths to sort out the truth. We got a copy of his 1992 marriage certificate from the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics. His driver’s license record from the Illinois Secretary of State’s office. His registration and disciplinary record with the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois. Not to mention all of his property records.
Not one of these documents shows a Muhammed (or Mohammed) in Obama's name. They all read "Barack H. Obama" or "Barack Hussein Obama."
The ultimate document we sought was Obama’s birth certificate. Unlike the other documents, Hawaii birth certificates aren’t public record. Only family members can request copies, so when the campaign declined to give us one, we were stalled.
On June 13, 2008, Obama’s campaign finally released a copy, while launching a fact-check Web site of its own, Fightthesmears.com. The site is a direct response to allegations about Obama that won’t go away: He’s Muslim. He took the oath of office on a Koran. He refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. PolitiFact has researched all of these accusations and none of them are true.
When the birth certificate arrived from the Obama campaign it confirmed his name as the other documents already showed it. Still, we took an extra step: We e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, which maintains such records, to ask if it was real.
“It’s a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,” spokesman Janice Okubo told us.
Then the firestorm started.
• Where is the embossed seal and the registrar’s signature?
• Comparing it to other Hawaii birth certificates, the color shade is different.
• Isn’t the date stamp bleeding through the back of the document “June 2007?” (Odd since it was supposedly released in June 2008.)
• There’s no crease from being folded and mailed.
• It’s clearly Photoshopped and a wholesale fraud.
• • •
At PolitiFact.com, we’re all about original sources. We don’t take anyone at their word or take the reporting of other media organizations as proof. We go to the heart of the story, the source of the truth — original, corroborating documents.
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.
Sounds like a Vince Flynn novel.
• • •
Peter Goelz knows a little something about conspiracy theorists.
He was managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board in 1996 when TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island, killing 230 people. While the NTSB’s investigation found no evidence of sabotage or terrorism, the Internet was stocked with insistent accusations.
“We were right at the beginning of this Internet lunacy,” Goelz said in an interview with PolitiFact. “And there were a variety of crackpot Web sites and Web commentators that generated all sorts of rumors. The principle one was that TWA in fact was shot down by an errant Navy missile in ... a live-fire exercise off the Hamptons.”
Nine miles off Long Island, in the middle of summer. And then a full-scale coverup by the Navy and all the sailors involved.
“I am sure that we spent another $10-million, perhaps $20-million, out of a $50-million investigation, to just knock down and put to bed these kinds of rumors, these insidious rumors,” Goelz said. “We felt like we had to answer every question because it was such a public and dreadful and confounding event.”
Goelz, who is now a communications consultant in Washington, D.C., says the Internet has given a platform to anyone to say anything. And a way to find others who want to hear it.
“Online, they can be almost anything,” he said. “They can be the crusading investigators that they always wanted to be.”
• • •
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.
And that’s true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.
Another theory, maybe he's trying to block the birth certificate from coming out and having his butt thrown into jail for fraud.
May your god help you. You need it.
Get real.
No, Philip Berg is a Philadelphia lawyer who is about to be disbarred for gross unprofessional misconduct.
You can save yourself a lot of anxiety by knowing the kooks.
Berg has been a political kook for years.
I'm currently, due to my employer of the last 15 years going bankrupt, unemployed. I'm interested in getting a job as a political kook. How do you break into the field? What's the compensation like?
there is more that concerns me about Obam a than just his birth certificate, adn the fact that he has held a dual citizenship in the past decade concerns me greatly among other things.
I don't for one minute believe he is a Christian as he proclaims, in fact by his own admission in an interview he is Muslim, if someone can't be honest about their religion doe we really want them in the office of the presidency?
and whiile many say this is old news, i think that keeping the pressure on hopefully will force Obama to cave, and if there is someone in on this in Hawaii government, that helped him forge a birth certificate, I'm sorry that doesn't say much for how people will cheat ot help someone get what they want.
i hope this gets settled for once and for all eiither way it needs to be settled.
Mooch
"I don’t know that it’s possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents.”
Folks, that ain't saying much at all. I have absolutely no doubt that I could produce a "copy" of "my" Hawaiian birth certificate, that would pass the PolitiFact test. One simply replaces some text in an image of any Hawaiian birth certificate, and has the good folks at the HDOH confirm one didn't botch the job too badly.
Please try to think with at least a modicum of distance between what you WANT to be true, and what has been presented. Simply declaring that this is "old news" won't make it go away. Mr. Obama has elected to make it extremely difficult to verify much of anything about his past, for he has chosen not to make public many aspects of it. To expect that no one would question anything he says about his past, under the circumstances, is truly unrealistic, I think. This is the Presidency we are dealing with, not American Idol ; )
I don't know you, of course. I don't have any reason or knowledge to call you "treasonous." To say the Pentagon is treasonous is a serious charge. I have some knowledge of it over many years. I knew the sheep and the wolves.
Absolutely love it! And that is the point - when did everyone stop questioning? Please anyone try to find a single legal article on Lexis-Nexis written by whom everyone is touting as a "legal scholar" with 12 years on the faculty of the University of Chicago School of Law. Search under any part of the name "Barack Obama". Let us know what you find.
As far as Sarah Palin's wardrobe, it's going to be given to charity as those clothes are not their own. OH, and what do you think of Obama going to Hawaii on the campaign's nickel? I'm sure that costs a lot of money, where's the outcry? It's quiet, but that's not surprising is it.
Ricky’s Teaser Tees & Things - Inspirations
"The Democratic nominee grabbed some precious time with Madelyn Dunham, 85, in her apartment complex in Hawaii, after stepping off the campaign trail for a day and a half and flying halfway across the Pacific to his native state."
"Now Berg cites Rule 36 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which states that unless the accused party provides written answer or objection to charges within 30 days, the accused legally admits the matter.
Since Obama has only filed motions to dismiss and has not actually answered the charges in the lawsuit, Berg claims, according to Rule 36, Obama has legally admitted he is not a natural-born citizen."
http://www.obamacrimes.com/
Again, though I'm still not sure there is anything to this, I don't get the resistance to making it public.
Anyway, I saw this article this morning, and it has a link to what a "vault" copy from Hawaii actually looks like. You can see it is nothing like the one seen at Factcheck, around the web, etc.
Newsmax is not exactly a non-biased site, but I thought those interested might want to see what one actually looks like.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_birth_certificate/2008/10/24/143882.html?s=al&promo_code=6E2D-1