Aug 22 2008
The Cult Of The COLB Crashes Into Reality
Factcheck.org has examined the physical Obama COLB and put to rest all the bizarre, stupid and unethical claims regarding its authenticity and Obama’s citizenship. They even provide pictures of all the features that many of us said were there and others claimed did not exist in the initial round of conspiracy theories (go to fact check for the larger image):
There will always be some dupes who won’t let go (some people still don’t think we went to the moon). No wonder America has lost respect for bloggers and conservatives and politics ‘as usual’. This is a huge waste of time for anyone who really opposes Obama for President. It is akin to believing their is a hidden magical wand somewhere that will make Obama just disappear, if the right heroine or hero can just find it. Pathetic.
Anybody getting signals from hidden spaceships behind comet tails out there?
Update: Some Hillary supporters have Obama Derangement Syndrome so bad they have decided to take the fake COLB to court. Talk about your political treason.  And why would these nuts think any party would put their trust in them or their ‘credibility’ ever again? This is how to destroy a reputation for life.
Do ya mean this Factcheck?
Factcheck.org has a conflict of interest in covering Barack Obama because they are owned by The Annenberg Foundation.
Seems to me, a legal challenge is the correct way to determine the
facts of the case and I am surprised that you so rail against it.
Must be one of your hot button issues. Normally, a case argued well
before a court, with expert witnesses, possibly proceeding all the way to
the Supreme Court, would be welcomed by either side as a sensible
way of resolving a dispute.
By the way, I think we went to the moon, but no way were those
movies filmed there.
This is getting as agitated as your immigration topic.
A legal challenge?
Dave, you don’t waste the court’s time on every goofy conspiracy theory out there. Unless you want to create a full time Kangaroo Konspiracy Kourt that could run full time.
What you propose is the lawbook definition of a frivolous case. There are rules in place on every level to stop people from using courts the way you propose to.
Suppose I say John McCain is really Rubin Goldfarb, an actor? Do I have the right to demand a court hearing based only on my fantasy? Suppose I were to claim that you, for an example, are really an illegal alien? Do I have the right to demand a court hearing on my made up story?
In case you wonder, the answer is No. There must be “some evidence” in favor of the position in order to get into a court. There is no evidence against Obama in this case, only fantasy and suppositions.
And made up internet scans are not evidence. Get something physical in your hands that supports your story, document the chain of ownership, and you might have some chance to demand a court hearing. Anything less than that, fuggedaboudit.
AJ is right – this story is dead.
For the sane people of the country/world/blogosphere – yes, it’s dead. It died a long time ago, actually – this was just the coroner’s report.
But there is nothing you could show or say to these lunatics that will ever, ever EVER convince them they are wrong. If… sorry, WHEN the court rules against them, it will be because… oh, let me guess – Obama bribed or threatened the judge. There will always be some new craziness that they invent in an attempt to keep this alive.
It’s a dead issue. All they want now is attention. Just ignore them.
Well, I didn’t propose a lawsuit,
This guy has done it:
Update 1: Case #08-CV-4083
Plaintiff: PHILIP J. BERG
What I find weird is your overreaction to these events.
The case will eventually succeed or it will not.
You seem determined to shut everyone up right here right now.
Us folk have to make our decisions based on a less than complete
chain of evidence. We don’t have the privilege of calling up some friend
in the intelligence services. We have to assemble incomplete scraps
and extrapolate, using our instinct and our experience. My
conclusion is that Obama is a total fraud, and that those certificates
are probably forgeries supported by a whole mountain of leftist money.
And I will vote appropriately, and I will argue appropriately. If the courts
rule Obama is eligible to run, then I will say fine. Of course I will still
hope a meteor hits him on the head.
What I won’t do is shut up just because someone has told me to shut up.
That’s just too Putin-esque . And this ain’t Georgia.
I don’t call bloggers who disagree with me “nuts” or “cultists”.
Go ahead and declare the story dead. Kinda reminds me of the IPCC
and the anti-global warming campaigners.
I think the case will be thrown out, beacuse there is no evidence or proof of any of the wild accusations about the COLB.
You’re right Stix, the case will be thrown out, not just because there’s no evidence but because Philip Berg has no standing to sue.
This is the technicality that kills most political lawsuits, and that drives activists with no legal expertise crazy. Standing isn’t nearly as complicated as some people make it out to be; simply, to bring a case you have to show how you have been physically or financially harmed by the actions of the defendant. Present harm, not future harm. No present harm, no case. Future harm? Wait till it happens, then sue. A finding of no standing is the easiest and fastest way for a judge to kill a case he thinks is a waste of time. It’s a tool every court uses to cut down it’s caseload.
Has Philip Berg been financially or personally injured by Obama’s claim? Somehow I doubt it. Case dismissed.
People misunderstand this because there are some areas where Congress has granted standing to people claiming future harm, primarily environmental and property law. But not politics.
Someone is bound to say “But Berg is a US citizen! And this will harm the US!!!” Lines like that always give lawyers a good laugh.
On the other hand, maybe old Philip could make like Victoria Osteen’s accuser – he could claim that worrying about Obama’s birth certificate has given him hemorhoids, and that’s why he has standing to sue for recovery of his preparation H bills.
Yeah, that’s the ticket!!!
There’s a bit more background on the lawsuit here:
http://www.americasright.com/2008/08/obama-sued-in-philadelphia-federal.html
Thanks for the link, filled in some background. Watch – he has no standing to sue, and he knows it. This is just a political stunt.
The fact that his case is a farce is shown by some lines that would cause a first year law student to flunk out, for example:
“Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen or that, if he ever was, he lost his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia.”
This is an absolutely ridiculous statement with no basis in law. Any law. As I posted once before, most laws restricting dual citizenship were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1967. I don’t know whether or not Obama was adopted in Indonesia, but it doesn’t matter. Such an adoption would have no effect on a minor’s US citizenship.
When a lawyer puts howlers like this into his lawsuit, it’s a sign that both he and everyone else involved know this case is a huge joke. However, it is a nice way to get some press and people talking about anti-Obama themes, which I imagine is his real intent. Nasty, underhanded way of going about it, though.
WWS wrote:
[….]
When a lawyer puts howlers like this into his lawsuit, it’s a sign that both he and everyone else involved know this case is a huge joke
.
I couldn’t agree more. What an idiot lawyer he is. It looks like he’s lost the plot.
Ray
Dave, seems as if everyone missed that little part of your comment. I won’t say anything about the COLB thing because I couldn’t care less, but I do care about people buying into factcheck.org hook line and sinker.
people seem to use it as a known, proven independent verifier of fact. They bare little resemblance to that. I personally know of things I have looked up on it that they were wrong on. Just like posts on blogs, they are usually just opinions and on political things, they definitely have a leftward tilt..
WWS, I think in most cases, people are given the opportunity to show that they have standing. I’d be surprised if an honest judge dismissed cases out of hand because they don’t ‘think’ they have standing. I don’t personally know if Berg has standing or not, but let me ask. If he doesn’t, who does? Who would be more harmed by an unqualified person becoming President of the US than a US citizen?
Here are a couple of Q & A directly from their site. biased? decide for yourself.
Q. Is a letter from an anonymous teacher about illegal immigrants getting school grants true?
June 9, 2008
A. No. It cobbles together misleading statements to give the impression that illegal immigrants are receiving perks from taxpayers, when, in fact, they are not.
my opinion, maybe they were answering about that ‘particular’ teacher, but do illegal immigrants get grants? you bet.
Q. Did Clinton win the popular vote?
June 5, 2008
A. Obama won more votes unless you count Michigan, where he wasn’t on the ballot.
the fact. Yes. Clinton got the most popular votes if all votes are counted.
Legally, this puts the entire COLB issue to rest – Senator Obama WAS born in the U.S. and this state-issued document is all that’s required in any court of law or government office.
HOWEVER, if you visit this page on the factcheck.org site:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
You will see a number of close ups of seal marks, official stamps, etc.
One thing that struck me was how new the document looked. In fact, the date this COLB was issued was June 6, 2007, which means this is not the ORIGINAL COLB, but a recent, “official” re-issue.
He either lost the original, or had a replacement issued because he didn’t want to show some of the information that appears on the original (e.g. birth weight and other information).
I hate that I’m even commenting on your statement because as I’ve said, I don’t care one bit about this issue except that it surprises me how naive some people are.
First you can be born (actually or Not born) anywhere in the world and still have a birth certificate issued to you (from anywhere) which can then be used to obtain a passport.
let me tell you a true story, I had a younger brother born in Georgia (usa) and he was killed when he was 13. A birth certificate was issued to him when he turned 18, which was used to obtain a social security number, a US passport and official US diplomatic corp identification. He even had a letter written by me and notarized that he was, in fact, my brother. He was also an undercover federal agent that was also a double agent. He had all of that identification in spite of the fact that my real brother was really dead and he was legally born as someone else. I know all this because I testified by deposition in a federal court that he was not my brother but an imposter and that my brother had in fact been dead since he was 13. So these birth certificates are a piece of cake to forge or get true false ones. his was a real birth certificate issued by the state of georgia and he wasn’t even running for president. So for a prize like that, what lengths would someone or some thing go to?
Redteam:
Holy shit – that’s freakin’ insane. I really am sorry for what you had to go through.
Did you ever track down how they got a notarized letter stating he was your brother? My wife is a notary, and she takes it VERY seriously. I get incensed when I hear about people that don’t think beyond their damn stamp.
breschau, when you have governmental agencies behind you, anything is possible. All of the documentation used to obtain the birth cert was forged. Everything after the birth cert was obtained was entirely legally issued based on it. I don’t believe they actually got a notary to sign. and in lieu of governmental agencies, substitute unlimited funding of crooked enterprises.
I am not saying anything at all about BO’s birth cert. I’m just saying that just because they have one, doesn’t prove a thing.
It has been a while since I have posted, but just wanted to point out a few things in the lawsuit that I found interesting. To begin with, this is not an inexperienced lawyer as some have claimed.
Phillip Berg, the filing attorney, is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County, former member of the Democratic State Committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania.
In the lawsuit, Berg states that Sen. Obama was born in Kenya, and not in Hawaii as the senator maintains. Before giving birth, according to the lawsuit, Obama’s mother traveled to Kenya with his father but was prevented from flying back to Hawaii because of the late stage of her pregnancy, “apparently a normal restriction to avoid births during a flight.” As Sen. Obama’s own paternal grandmother, half-brother and half-sister have also claimed, Berg maintains that Stanley Ann Dunham–Obama’s mother–gave birth to little Barack in Kenya and subsequently flew to Hawaii to register the birth.
Should Sen. Obama truly have been born in Kenya, Berg writes, the laws on the books at the time of his birth hold that U.S. citizenship may only pass to a child born overseas to a U.S. citizen parent and non-citizen parent if the former was at least 19 years of age. Sen. Obama’s mother was only 18 at the time. Therefore, because U.S. citizenship could not legally be passed on to him, Obama could not be registered as a “natural born” citizen and would therefore be ineligible to seek the presidency pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.
Moreover, even if Sen. Obama could have somehow been deemed “natural born,” that citizenship was lost in or around 1967 when he and his mother took up residency in Indonesia, where Stanley Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen.
Berg possesses copies of Sen. Obama’s registration to Fransiskus Assisi School In Jakarta, Indonesia which clearly show that he was registered under the name “Barry Soetoro” and his citizenship listed as Indonesian and his religion “Islam”.
As far as the 1967 Supreme Court decision, these events occurred before 1967 and if was not born in Hawaii, but in Kenya it would not be an issue.
SBD
[…] hooey about his birth certificate. For this, I “borrow” from AJ Strata who writes in The Cult Of The COLB Crashes Into Reality: There will always be some dupes who won’t let go (some people still don’t think we went to the […]
I am an Independent. No matter how well Obama presents himself or the Democratic cause, I simply cannot vote for him. This is the reason why. To me there are three primary things that unite this great, wonderful, crazy melting pot of a nation of people that we call America. The Constitution, our Flag and our English language. A lawsuit has been filed against Obama, the DNC and the FEC, disputing his eligibility under the II Amendment (dual citizenship), to even run for President. It has not gone away or yet been resolved irrefutably to the American people. I cannot just sit back and allow some hotshot Constitutional Atty attempt to trash or do an end run around our Constitution. It could set a precedent that could have future grave repercussions for out country, not to mention the chaos that would ensue.
See http://obamacrimes.com/ for details.
There are enough legitimate and valid questions/points raised by this lawsuit, that I now want independent definitive answers to them. The fact that both the Daily Kos and Obama’s own website posted a blatant “forgery” of his COLB on his website, raises questions. Now factcheck.org, a democratic mouthpiece, has posted the “supposed†real certified COLB on their website quite conveniently after Obama made his little trip to Hawaii. It still states that the father’s race is “Africanâ€. That cannot be right. Africa is a continent, not a race, as there are Caucasian Africans also. Not good enough for me now. To little, to late.
I no longer will accept a COLB that has come from inside the Obama campaign and posted on some Obama supporting website. The issue of forgery looms large as a specter here. I need to see an outside independently certified verification of his original vault certificate by a legal entity, under penalty of perjury. I also need certified answers to the other issues raised. This is a grave matter of Constitutional law that affects the very core of who we are as a people and what we represent. He needs to answer the American people. We need to protect and preserve the future integrity of the Democratic party. I may be independent, but I still want/need to have choices when I vote. That is why I am Independent.
Mr. Berg has been painted out to be some kind of a kook due to other causes he has chosen to espouse. Be that as it may, I do know that you do not get to be Pennsylvania’s former deputy attorney general by being a crackpot or a kook. I would imagine that you would have to know your stuff! He sounds pretty logical and coherent to me. Enough so, that I want answers now and not later.
http://www.americasright.com/2008/08/q-with-phillip-berg.html.
This lawsuit has not gone away, contrary to the belief of some. Confirmation was received from Mr. Berg’s Process Service Company that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Senator Barack Obama were served today, September 4, 2008, with the legal documents pertaining to Berg vs. Obama, Civil Action No. 08-cv-4083. The DNC was served at 12:00 p.m. and Senator Obama was served at 1:00 p.m. The U.S. Attorney’s Office accepted service on behalf of the Federal Elections Committee (FEC) on or about August 22, 2008.
Now it would be very simple for Obama and the DNC to make this all go away. Just authorize the production of the proper documentation by a third unbiased party. Why won’t/can’t they just do this? How hard can it be. Their stalling and hesitation alarms me. Why don’t they just sue the pants off of Berg if there is no veracity to this suit? There is still time (not much) for Obama to step aside and allow the Democratic party to have a legitimate candidate with time left to campaign. This lawsuit really needs to be fast tracked now.
I can picture this scenario………………..Obama is elected. After election it is determined that he is not eligible, Then (the two time Pres. candidate loser, a long time Washington insider), Biden, steps into the Presidency. Biden has had to date, two brain aneurysms and a heart attack and he, like McCain, is also old. Now let us postulate that he expires due to health issues while in office. That would mean that Pelosi would then, by law, step into the Presidency. This scenario gives me a straight up heart attack and the willies to boot! Who here thinks that she is qualified to be President? It does not seem to me that any of these democrats are qualified. This is why it is so important that Obama prove himself eligible to ALL Americans before one should vote for him. I cannot just “accept” his word for it now. Until that happens, I find that I have no option other than to vote for McCain.
#
After having read all these comments and seen several videos of images I must conclude that there is something missing here.
1. Our next president needs to be a “natural born citizen†as is so stated in Article II of our constitution.
2. The framers of the U.S. constitution included that verbage in the constitution in order to avoid divided loyalties.
3. When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.’s children.
4. Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4,1982.
You see, the problem is not his birth certificate or COLB, wether he was born in Hawaii or not. The problem is his status as either a U.S. Citizen or a “natural born citizen,†if Obama Sr. by virtue of his own Kenyan citizenship afforded Obama Jr. a “dual†citizenship, then IN FACT the latter would not be eligible to hold the office of POTUS.
We really need to think about that, is the constitution important enough to uphold or should we simply follow as blind sheep without truly investigating this matter thoroughly? I for one do not view this matter as “silly†and apparently neither does the Supreme Court, even know, as I write this, there are currently trhee cases up for review within the SC. Remember, “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 Statesâ€.