Saturday, November 29, 2008
Obama Citizenship Questions
Questions on the Physical Document
Why is his father's race listed as "African" instead of the common 1961 legal appellation "Negro"?
Why are there white and grey pixels between the text letters in the scanned image of Obama's Certificate?
Why is there no second fold line on the document, given that the only fold line visible on the certificate implies it had been folded in thirds?
Why does the document border appear to have been scanned at a lower resolution then the rest of the document?
Why does the border appear to be from a 2007 version of the document format instead of the 2008 version?
Why does the signature and seal date (2008) not appear to match the border style?
Questions about his life
Why does no one seem able to agree which hospital Barack Obama was born in?
If not born in Hawaii, was his 18-year old mother able to pass on citizenship to her son?
Why did the Indonesian school he attended as a child list him as an Indonesian citizen?
How did Barack Obama travel to Pakistan and Indonesia in 1981 to "visit his mother" given that in that year:
(a) his mother was in Hawaii after finalizing a divorce,
(b) Pakistan was under martial law,
(c) there is no record of him having a US passport prior to his first term as a US senator.
Why did Barack Obama register as an Illinois attorney in part by swearing he had never lived under any other name?
Why has he refused to release any of his personal records: certificate of live birth, law school transcripts, medical records, etc.?
Could it be true?
Could it be the case that no one ever actually vetted Barack Obama's birth certificate?
Recall that Barack Obama is a Chicago machine politician. Nothing happens in Chicago unless Mayor Daley allows it. Conversely, if Daley wants it, it happens.
Barack Obama managed to throw at least two opposing candidates off political tickets when sealed divorce papers in both cases were somehow released to the public. If this had happened once, that would be Fortune smiling upon young Barack. But twice? In the same race?
Barack was a made man, bought and paid for by the Daley Machine. Although the Illinois Secretary of State was bound to verify Barack's US citizenship, why would any political hack worth his/her salt go fishing where Mayor Daley had set up an "Off Limits" sign?
Barack could easily have supplied the SoS office the same Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth instead of an actual birth certificate, and no one would have looked twice. It would have been acceptable because the Machine said it was, and the actual vault birth certificate need never have been produced.
Similarly, once a US Senator applies for a passport, who in the machinery of federal government is going to turn him down? He's already been vetted at the state level, right?
As a cog in the federal machine, the last thing you want is an angry Senator breathing down your federal office neck, especially when the junior senator's senior partner is Dick Durbin, Minority Whip in 2001, Majority Whip in 2006, and on the Appropriations Committee.
It's all social engineering, and as every black-hat hacker knows, social engineering works.
If he could snag a Senate seat and US passport based on strength of personality and Machine politics, why not the Presidency?
I'm not saying this necessarily happened.
I'm just pointing out that - given his background, given how he manipulated the political situation in the past and/or had it manipulated for him - it is perfectly plausible.
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19 comments:
On Dec 5 the Supreme Court will either allow or disallow the usurpation of both the Constitution and the Government of the United States — easily the most pivotal decision since our nation’s founding — and the silence of the news media is deafening (if not downright scary).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqH7rSHcvgU
This compilation of questions concerning Barack Obama's citizenship is out of date. These questions have already been satisfactorily answered. You need to let this go, Steve. At one time it was reasonable to question whether or not Obama is a U.S. citizen, but more than enough evidence is now available to satisfy a court that he was born in Hawaii. Obama won't be disqualified on these grounds, since the burden of proof is now on those who claim he wasn't born in Hawaii: a burden one cannot reasonably expect them to be able to meet.
Why is his father's race listed as "African" instead of the common 1961 legal appellation "Negro"?
According to Hawaiian state officials, the race or nationality on a COLB will be whatever the parents wrote on the original birth certificate. Since Barack Hussein Obama Sr. called himself "African," that is what the State of Hawaii's records say he was.
Why are there white and grey pixels between the text letters in the scanned image of Obama's Certificate?
Questions about alleged tampering in the electronic scans of his COLB are no longer relevant since the original of the COLB has been examined and found to be a perfect match to the electronic scans.
But this document expert digitally analysed examined the scans and found absolutely no trace of electronic tampering, except for the unnecessary blackening out of the COLB's document number:
http://xenon.arcticus.com/barack-obama-birth-certificate-image-tampering-analysis
Why is there no second fold line on the document, given that the only fold line visible on the certificate implies it had been folded in thirds?
There IS a second fold line on the document -- it wasn't visible in the scans, which is unimportant as such things often don't show up in scanned versions of paper originals. But photographs of the COLB show that it had a second fold, because it had been folded in thirds when the State of Hawaii put it in the envelope and mailed it to Barack Obama in June 2007.
Why does the document border appear to have been scanned at a lower resolution then the rest of the document?
It doesn't.
Why does the border appear to be from a 2007 version of the document format instead of the 2008 version?
Because the COLB was printed in 2007, not 2008.
Why does the signature and seal date (2008) not appear to match the border style?
The official signature and seal were applied to the back (not front) of the COLB in June 2007, and naturally wouldn't match the border style of the printed form.
Why does no one seem able to agree which hospital Barack Obama was born in?
Somebody apparently misremembered which hospital it was. But the State of Hawaii affirms he was born in Honolulu.
If not born in Hawaii, was his 18-year old mother able to pass on citizenship to her son?
But all the available documents affirm he was born in Hawaii.
Why did the Indonesian school he attended as a child list him as an Indonesian citizen?
Because he was probably an Indonesian citizen at that time. U.S. citizenship law does not mention dual citizenship, but neither does it forbid it. Anyway if he ever was an Indonesian citizen, that citizenship expired a good while ago.
How did Barack Obama travel to Pakistan and Indonesia in 1981 to "visit his mother" given that in that year:
(a) his mother was in Hawaii after finalizing a divorce,
No, she was in Indonesia at that time. She separated from her Indonesian husband in 1972 and returned to Hawaii, but in 1977 she went back to Indonesia, even though she and her husband remained estranged and formally divorced in 1980.
(b) Pakistan was under martial law,
(c) there is no record of him having a US passport prior to his first term as a US senator.
If I recall correctly, he traveled to Indonesia and Pakistan on his Indonesian passport.
Why did Barack Obama register as an Illinois attorney in part by swearing he had never lived under any other name?
Maybe he lied, or maybe he forgot, or maybe his legal name was always Barack Hussein Obama despite the school records (which aren't official vital records) calling his Barry Soetoro.
Why has he refused to release any of his personal records: certificate of live birth
This, of course, is woefully out of date. He released his COLB to the public in June 2008, a year after the State of Hawaii prepared his certified copy.
law school transcripts, medical records, etc.?
Probably because his law school transcripts aren't that stellar, or betray a certain political disposition, and probably because his medical records are embarrassing, since he has acknowledged abusing illegal drugs.
Could it be true?
Could it be the case that no one ever actually vetted Barack Obama's birth certificate?
No, it cannot be true.
Well, this is a nice rehash of questions and allegations from the summer. Apparently there isn't anything new to cast doubt on the information we've learned since then, such as documents from Kenya showing Obama to have been born there. Unless such evidence is forthcoming, we must presume that the State of Hawaii is telling the truth when they say he was born there.
On Dec 5 the Supreme Court will either allow or disallow the usurpation of both the Constitution and the Government of the United States.
The Supreme Court won't do anything related to these allegations on Dec. 5.
If Barack Obama is a citizen of the United States, why doesn't he settle the questions by releasing his vault birth certificate instead of this silly COLB?
For someone who claims to be "a uniter", he doesn't do much about going the extra step, does he?
The man supports cold-blooded murder and he's a demonstrated liar. I won't believe he was born in Hawaii until I see his birth certificate, and to be honest, I would only buy that if it was verified by a document expert I had reason to trust.
Fraud happens.
There's no reason to think US Presidential candidates can't successfully engage in it.
If Barack Obama is a citizen of the United States, why doesn't he settle the questions by releasing his vault birth certificate instead of this silly COLB?
The "silly COLB" is all U.S. law requires. Why would he go to the extra length of petitioning a Hawaiian judge to order the State of Hawaii to release the original birth certificate when the certified, verified COLB is legal proof? After all, it's not like there is any compelling reason to doubt the COLB's authenticity -- those doubts were reasonable way back in the summer, but they're not reasonable any more. All the questions about the COLB have been reasonably answered, and there's no documentation indicating he was born anywhere else but where the State of Hawaii and the Honolulu Advertiser dated Sunday, 13 Aug. 1961, says he was born.
Yes, fraud happens, and of course it's not impossible that there has been a vast conspiracy going back to 1961 to make people believe Obama is a U.S. citizen, but it's so incredibly unlikely that we can't put any stock in it unless there is conclusive evidence he was born in Kenya.
Jordanes, you have it backwards. Barack Obama doesn't have to petition a court or a judge to get a copy of his original vault birth certificate. It's HIS document. all he or his family has to do is request it. It is reporters, et. al. who are NOT related to him who have to petition judges and courts.
So, again, why doesn't he request it?
The COLB might be proof in most states, but during this period, Hawaii allowed ANYONE who claimed to have resided in Hawaii during the past year to register a birth no matter where it took place. As has been noted elsewhere, Americans with foreign-born children often took advantage of this loophole.
As for the birth announcement in the newspaper, that isn't proof of anything. Birth announcements can be and often are phoned in to a newspaper from hundreds of miles away. The Honolulu paper doesn't indicate the place of birth, just the fact of birth. No one is contesting THAT he was born - the location is the source of the contest, and the newspaper announcement doesn't answer that question.
As I've pointed out in the essay, it doesn't require "a vast conspiracy going back to 1961" for this fraud to be perpetrated. Obama didn't need to prove citizenship to get into Harvard. He only needed citizenship for the Senate seat and for POTUS.
So, all that is needed is an Illinois Machine clerk who can't distinguish between a COLB and a real birth certificate (pretty easily done) and a federal official who can be fooled into issuing a passport - also not necessarily that tricky.
Jordanes, you have it backwards. Barack Obama doesn't have to petition a court or a judge to get a copy of his original vault birth certificate. It's HIS document. all he or his family has to do is request it. It is reporters, et. al. who are NOT related to him who have to petition judges and courts.
You're mistaken, Steve. As someone who has done a great deal of genealogical research, I know something about this. Original "vault" birth certificates on file in state archives are the private property of the state -- no one is allowed to remove it from the archives, nor it is a public record accessible to someone who files a petition under the Freedom of Information Act. It may only be viewed at the archives, and only by the persons designated by the law. Obama does not have the authority to just go to Honolulu, get the original long form and show it to the press. He'd need a special court order for that. He can view it at the archives, as can someone he duly designates as a proxy, and he can have a COLB drawn up from the original, but the original stays in the archives. Laws vary from state to state, but those basic rules apply everywhere.
The COLB might be proof in most states
It's proof in any U.S. court.
but during this period, Hawaii allowed ANYONE who claimed to have resided in Hawaii during the past year to register a birth no matter where it took place.
The newspaper birth announcement indicates Obama was born in Hawaii. It says, "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaola Hwy., son, Aug. 4." Prior to the strict HIPAA privacy rules issued by the federal government a few years ago, these announcements were prepared up by newspapers from lists drawn up by the hospital staff. "Vanity" birth announcements submitted by family are what newspapers publish today, due to HIPAA restrictions, but this announcement obviously was not a vanity announcement, but came from a hospital. Consequently the announcement indicates that Obama had been born in a Honolulu hospital.
Furthermore, the COLB says he was born in Honolulu, and the COLB has been personally, publicly vouched for by the registrar who issued and certified it last year.
As has been noted elsewhere, Americans with foreign-born children often took advantage of this loophole.
There's no reason to believe that's what happened here, but good reason to conclude the contrary.
As for the birth announcement in the newspaper, that isn't proof of anything. Birth announcements can be and often are phoned in to a newspaper from hundreds of miles away.
Yes, and it has been suggested that his maternal grandparents had submitted this announcement when they found out about his birth. But as I said, that wasn't the regular practice back then. Newspapers collected this information with the help of hospital staff or government office staff -- in many places, there was a prepared sheet at the hospital or government clerk that the reporter just picked up on a daily basis and brought back to the newsroom.
Anyway, the idea that Obama's mother gave birth in a Mombassa hospital and then hopped an international flight with her newborn the next day is simply laughable. Not that there is any paper trail at all to suggest that Obama was born in Kenya, of course. The only documents available all point clearly and compellingly to Hawaii.
The Honolulu paper doesn't indicate the place of birth, just the fact of birth.
It's a list of children born within the past couple of weeks whose births had been registered with the Bureau of Health by Hawaiian hospitals, so yes, the newspaper does indicate the place of birth. If he'd been born outside of Hawaii, it would have said so. Remember newspapers have to think about saving copy space if at all possible, especially newspapers using 1960s-era technology.
As I've pointed out in the essay, it doesn't require "a vast conspiracy going back to 1961" for this fraud to be perpetrated.
If he wasn't born in Honolulu, Hawaii, then someone must have faked the 1961 birth announcement in the newspaper that indicates he was born there.
The newspaper page from The Sunday Advertiser of Honolulu, page B-6, lists Obama's birth under "Health Bureau Statistics: Births, Marriages, Deaths." These births are printed amidst a host of want ads and classified ads. So, as I said above, this is information obtained from a hospital, which would have submitted the information as required to the Bureau of Health.
So, all that is needed is an Illinois Machine clerk who can't distinguish between a COLB and a real birth certificate (pretty easily done)
A COLB is legally valid proof. It is a "real" birth certificate.
and a federal official who can be fooled into issuing a passport - also not necessarily that tricky.
He also needed Chiyome Fukino, director of Hawaii’s Department of Health, and Alvin Onaka, registrar of vital statistics, to come out in public and affirm that they have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate and that the June 2007 COLB matches what the original says.
I'll leave you with some further food from thought from a Nov. 9 article in The Honolulu Advertiser, one of the two newspapers that published Obama's birth announcement in 1961:
The exact same notice appeared the following day in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The numerous birth announcements above and below the Obama listing also were identical in both papers, which were unaffiliated, competing publications.
Advertiser columnist and former Star-Bulletin managing editor Dave Shapiro was not at either paper in 1961, but he remembers how the birth notices process worked years later when both papers were jointly operated by the Hawaii Newspaper Agency — which no longer exists.
"Those were listings that came over from the state Department of Health," he said. "They would send the same thing to both papers."
Fringe theorists who insist Obama was born in Kenya are left to ponder how two independent Honolulu daily newspapers and the state Department of Health could be part of conspiracy half a century ago to thwart the truth about the future president of the United States.
There's reasonable skepticism, and there's unreasonable skepticism. Yours is unreasonable, Steve.
Alan Keyes from the American Independent Party also seems to have some issues with the docs provided, as we all should:
http://www.soundinvestments.us/files/final_writ_keyes_v_bowen.pdf
Jordanes, your objections are interesting, but not conclusive.
I will be satisfied when Dr. Alan Keyes is satisfied.
I don't have to wait for Alan Keyes to be satisfied. I can just look at the evidence available and see what is the most likely explanation: Obama was born in Hawaii, the June 2007 COLB is valid and sufficient to establish his U.S. citizenship, and no court is going to give any of these legal challenges the time of day, since the judges can see that legal burden of proving citizenship has already been met, rendering the lawsuits frivolous.
Well, the Supreme Court is going to give at least two of these cases the time of day on December 5.
The cases may not make it to the docket, but the SC is discussing them.
And I don't think Justice Clarence Thomas would allow a "frivolous" lawsuit to make it this far, do you?
Well, the Supreme Court is going to give at least two of these cases the time of day on December 5.
There's the Donofrio case set for conference on Dec. 5. What is the other case? Berg's petition for a writ of certoriari (that is, a request that the Supreme Court accept his appeal) has not been accepted by any of the Justices, who are under no obligation to accept his appeal. There's no reason to believe they will accept Berg's appeal. What reason is there to believe that the outcome of the Dec. 5 conference will be any different for Donofrio's appeal?
The cases may not make it to the docket, but the SC is discussing them.
The Justices will discuss whether or not to reconsider Justice Souter's rejection of Donofrio's petition. That's all. Nobody should get their hopes up. The Justices rarely go against the prior decision of one of their own.
And I don't think Justice Clarence Thomas would allow a "frivolous" lawsuit to make it this far, do you?
Yes, he might. As GeorgetownJD explained over at wthrockmorton.com, "When one Justice has denied an application for stay, the applicant may renew his application and directed to another Justice. However, this is disfavored because it puts the second Justice in the awkward position of second-guessing his colleague. Understandably, a Justice is reluctant to go on record granting relief when his/her colleague has denied that same relief. Therefore, it is customary for the second Justice to buck the renewed application to the full Court. Virtually every renewed application for stay is referred, at which point the Clerk distributes it and schedules it for an upcoming conference. I wouldn’t read anything into Justice Thomas’s referral. He routinely refers renewed applications to the full Court."
So the fact that Justice Thomas referred this to conference doesn't necessarily mean he thinks the case has merit. All it means is that when Souter rejected Donofrio's appeal, Donofrio turned to Thomas. Nothing more.
GeorgetownJD also commented, "It requires one Justice to put a case on the disrtibution list for conference; four Justices to agree to grant certiorari; and five to overturn a lower court’s ruling. I agree that Donofrio is facing long odds. Perhaps the Supreme Court is intrigued by Donofrio’s argument that a person born with dual citizenship is disqualified, and wants to put the issue to rest. If so, the Court would rule only on the legal question of dual citizenship, and would not address the speculation of a 'Kenya birth' or 'Indonesian adoption.'"
Or maybe, as he said, this is just a pro forma means permitting the Justices to reject Donofrio's case in a way that Thomas does not seem to be insulting Souter. Like I said, nobody should get their hopes us.
P.S. I also wonder if Thomas' referring the second petition to conference was a way to decisively kill Donofrio's case: but I don't know how many chances a person has to file a petition for writ of certoriari with the nine Justices in a particular case. If it's more than two, then Thomas' action could well have been meant to get the court to definitively turn down the petition. Could that be why it is so routine for Justices to refer second applications to the full court?
Per Leo Donofrio, the package that contained his 39 page brief resubmitted to Justice Scalia has been captured by the Public Information Officer for the Supreme Court and is currently being anthrax tested. You just can't make this stuff up. The testing is supposed to take... wait for it... yes, nine days. As the PIO pointed out, that was just long enough to keep the individual cases from being enjoined. Several news reporters have made a request to the PIO for how common of an event that type of testing is for briefs, however so far... you guessed it... no comment.
Per Leo Donofrio, the package that contained his 39 page brief resubmitted to Justice Scalia has been captured by the Public Information Officer for the Supreme Court and is currently being anthrax tested.
No, that's Cort Wrotnowski's case, not Leo Donofrio. Your confusion is understandable, though, since Donofrio and Wrotnowski have appeared together in the media talking about their cases, and their cases are similar (though without merit: there's nothing in the Constitution that prevents the election of a natural-born citizen who used to have dual citizenship but doesn't any longer, and anyway the Justices would only consider whether or not the case was dismissed on adequate grounds, and not discuss or debate the case's arguments: in the unlikely event that 4 Justices think it was wrongly dismissed, they'll remand it to the court that had dismissed the case).
As for the conspiracy theory that the anthrax testing (assuming the story is genuine) is a means to prevent Wrotnowski's case from being docketed for this Friday alongside Donofrio's, even without the anthrax delay Scalia would have had to refer the case to the full court for a conference, and then the Clerk (not Scalia) would have docketed the case, and there's no way the Clerk would have scheduled it for this Friday. Donofrio's case was refiled to Thomas on Nov. 14 and distributed for conference Nov. 19 at which time it was docketed for Dec. 5. Wrotnowski's case wasn't refiled to Scalia until Nov. 29, so the earliest we should expect it to be distributed for conference would be Dec. 3 (today), at which time it would be docketed for some time this month prior to the date that the Electors will elected Barack Obama president.
Here is the whole story from his POV:
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/
Actually, the merit issue is not that easily dismissed. In May 2008 the Senate unanimously declared McCain a U.S. citizen qualified to be President. Now, why would they do something that strange? This is another one of those issues where the Constitution is descriptive in a strange way "like the right to bear arms". "Only native-born U.S. citizens" can be President. So, over the years we have recognized people born in other countries on U.S. soil as citizens, but are they "native-born"? The Senate in May decided to show support for his eligibility without binding legal clarification changes. All of my old Poli-Sci professors are sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to see the results. This may become the historical year that the nuances of both citizenship and gun ownership get clarifications that were seriously needed in U.S. politics.
By the way, here's an expert analysis and debunking of the questions and doubts that a few people have raised about the digital images of Barack Obama's 2007 Hawaiian birth certificate.
http://hackerfactor.com/blog/
index.php?/archives/235-Bad-Science-How-Not-To-Do-Image-Analysis-Part-II.html
(The URL is long, so I've added carriage returns to make it fit in this commentbox.)
The COLB might be proof in most states, but during this period, Hawaii allowed ANYONE who claimed to have resided in Hawaii during the past year to register a birth no matter where it took place. As has been noted elsewhere, Americans with foreign-born children often took advantage of this loophole.
According to the Hawaiian statute, this law statute allowing Hawaiian residents to register out-of-state births was not enacted until 1982, 21 years after Obama was born. Therefore since two Hawaiian newspapers in Aug, 1961 printed the Bureau of Health's registration of Obama's birth, that can only mean that he was born in Hawaii.
Also, it turns out that the video of Obama's grandmother in which she allegedly claims to have witnessed his birth says no such thing. She was talking about her stepson, Obama Sr., not her stepgrandson. That would explain why Sarah Obama is no longer saying she witnessed Obama Jr.'s birth -- because she never said it at all.
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