Family Security Matters contributor, Attorney John D. Hemenway , has published an interesting letter to News Corp. chief Rupert Murdock asking that he direct his Fox News people to report on the Barack Obama eligibility controversy. Hemenway writes of a “ massive collapse of the fundamentals of the electoral process (ensuring candidate eligibility)” and places Murdock’s Fox News in the midst of the controversy because of the news division’s avoidance of the Obama eligibility issue; saying further that orders from on high forbade commentators from mentioning it. Hemenway writes:
There are reports that top management of Fox instructed its commentators to stay away from the subject – a strange position for a service that deservedly won a reputation for “fair and balanced” reporting. I cannot believe that you would issue such an order, with your good sense. Was it Roger Ailes or someone else?
The letter is long but well worth reading and you can do so here.
The hopes and prayers of the American people have finally been answered with the election of a new president: A fraud they can believe in.
Yes, and even as Barack Obama demonstrates he is a fraud, phony and hypocrite par excellence — who also happens to be in way over his head — the American people still believe in him. Yes, love is grand and his approval rating is still miraculously high. If the truth were known, that approval rating would be sinking lower than the stock market, home prices or the economy.
I doubted he was the Messiah, but now I’m not sure. When a president can be the greatest wealth destroyer in history and still maintain high approval ratings, maybe he does have supernatural powers. What’s more he is god-like. It is said God so loved the poor that he made many of them; Mr. Obama is almost outdoing God by turning so many into poor people.
As I surveyed the disaster that is the Obama administration, I was surprised by how many memorable statements of the past put the present and the president into such clear perspective. I have a weakness for books of quotations and I was re-reading that fascinating book by Robert Byrne titled, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said.
In it, I came across the quote that describes our recent American history so perfectly. Will Durst, a comedian, put it perfectly when he said, “Voters want a fraud they can believe in.” (read the rest here)
The fraud continues: Obama’s people have mounted a pledge signing campaign; perhaps this is to counter the rapidly growing We Surround Them USA group. The Obamabots are canvassing neighborhoods, shops and offices asking people to agree saying: I support President Obama’s bold approach for renewing America’s economy and that: I will ask friends, family, and neighbors to pledge their support for this plan. Then they are asked for email address. There are training videos here and here. Here is the Obama plan: (link)
h/t Sweetness and Light
* Energy — Transforming America’s economy to run on clean and renewable energy in order to create new American jobs and industries
* Health care — Comprehensively reforming health
care so that families, businesses, and government are relieved from the
crushing costs that impede economic growth and prosperity
* Education — Reforming and investing in America’s education system so that citizens are prepared to compete in a global economy
“We cannot continue to rely
on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives
that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” (emphasis added) Barack Obama (July 2, 2008)
In the Sweetness and Light piece linked above Steve Gilbert writes:
Anyone who is a student of totalitarian regimes, especially Nazi
Germany, should recognize this tactic. Mr. Obama has organized his own
cadre of Brown Shirts (or, if you prefer, Red Shirts) to agitate for
his agenda.
Mr. Alinsky would be proud. And rightly so. For this is simply the
continuation of Mr. Obama’s perpetual campaign. A campaign, as we noted
at the time, that was modeled on Saul Alinsky’s organizing principles.
Of course, Alinsky, had modeled his methods on the great communist
and/or fascist agitators of the past. Hence, the unsettling resemblance
to Soviet-style and Nazi Germany agit-prop.
What a brave new world Mr. Obama is bringing us.
As for the shirt color I would say green. The Green Czar is latest and perhaps scariest of the Obama appointees. Van Jones is, to quote Michael Savage, “an anti police radical activist from the gutters of the bay area”. Jones has been appointed special adviser to the Obama administration for Green Jobs. The fact that the far left has seized control of environmental issues and causes is reason enough for alarm but now we are to understand that there is a connection between “solar panels and police brutality”!
Not everyone makes the connection between solar panels and police
brutality—but human rights activist Van Jones does. Jones founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
in 1996 to help victims of police brutality navigate the U.S. justice
system. Since then, the organization’s mission has expanded: The center
now works to reduce the San Francisco Bay Area’s prison population and
to ensure that ex-inmates can find jobs that positively impact on the
environment. Along with creating what he calls “green collar jobs,”
Jones has received the Rockefeller Foundation’s Next Generation
Leadership Fellowship and Reebok’s Human Rights Award. He serves on the
boards of Social Venture Network, National Apollo Alliance, Bioneers,
Rainforest Action Network, and Julia Butterfly Hill’s “Circle of Life”
organization.
We said, “We want green jobs, not jails,” which became
our big slogan—four syllables that totally transformed our
organization. All of a sudden we were dealing with everything from
climate stabilization, new technologies, and new business models to
poverty eradication and job training. We didn’t know what we were
getting into.
In this video Van Jones clearly describes the connection between socialism and environmentalism: “the two big issues we were facing were the envirionmental crisis and also the social crisis”
Although I don’t always agree with Savage I can appreciate his fear that the Green Job Corps could provide the cadre of the Civilian National Security Force described by Obama last year. American Thinker today tends to downplay Savage’s fears saying:
Barack Obama’s recent words to promote his image as Community Organizer in Chief
were not about forming a paramilitary force of volunteer brown shirts.
They were about turning America into one, giant, community organizer’s
sandbox at enormous cost to taxpayers.
Attorney Leo C. Donofrio reports in an update this evening that the SCOTUS docket item WROTNOWSKI v. BYSIEWICZ is scheduled for conferencing among the justices on Friday Dec 12. This was submitted by Justice Scalia. Recent discoveries about President Chester A. Arthur and one of his Supreme Court appointees may have a bearing on the present case according to Donofrio. Therefore:
Tomorrow, Dec. 9 – Cort Wrotnowski will submit a supplemental brief concerning the newly discovered ineligibility of twenty-first President Chester Arthur due to his having been born as a British subject. This is relevant to the case at hand in that Justice Gray – who wrote the seminal opinion in United States v. Wong Kim Arc – was appointed by Chester Arthur.
Leo Donofrio will accompany Cort Wrotnowski to Washington D.C. tomorrow and both will be available for comment at 11:00 AM on the steps of the Supreme Court. This is not a rally, protest or vigil. If the media would like to discuss this historical brief and the issues discussed above, Donofrio and Wrotnowski will be available to answer any questions thereto.
Once upon a time there was a politically ambitious man who told many lies about himself and his family. We shall call him Mr. X. During one of his early political campaigns a political enemy circulated rumors that Mr. X was born in a foreign country and therefore ineligible for high elective office. Mr. X denied the charge saying his father was a British subject but that he (X) was born here.
Mr. X claimed that his mother had always lived in the U.S. which was untrue as she had lived in another country with her husband and had (a child) there. Mr. X realized early on that he was not a “natural born citizen” because he knew that he was born before his father was naturalized. X told lie upon lie about his father’s age, the year the father came to America, even his own age; and he destroyed most of his papers all in the effort to conceal the fact that he was ineligible for high office. Who is Mr. X?
As strange as this may sound, we are not discussing Barack Obama here. Mr. X is Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President of the United States who succeeded to the Presidency upon the assassination of President James Garfield. Due to the diligent research of Leo C. Donofrio with the assistance of Arthur biographer Greg Dehler we learn that Chester A. Arthur was a usurper, never eligible for POTUS. Talk about an amazing confluence of events: just as we are ready to install the ineligible Barack Obama as POTUS we learn that this has happened before. As Donofrio says in his report on the matter; “… it’s no precedent to follow.”
The political enemy mentioned in the lead paragraph was, in reality, one Arthur P. Hinman (see footnote below)*, who may have been hired by the Democrats to smear Arthur. Interestingly, the charge of ineligibilty for POTUS brought by Hinman against Arthur was true, but for the wrong reason: Chester A. Arthur was a British subject at birth (just as Obama was) but by virtue of his birth prior to his father’s naturalization rather than birth on foreign soil. As in Obama’s case, who acknowledges on his website that he had dual citizenship at birth, we find the evidence in plain sight but too late discern its meaning.
President Chester A. Arthur
*More interesting but entirely without foundation was the Hinman myth circulated in 1880 and 1881. This story asserted that Elder Arthur had three sons: William Chester Alan Arthur, born at the home of his mother’s parents in Dunham, Province of Quebec; Chester Abell Arthur, born at Fairfield; and William Arthur, Jr., born at Hinesburgh, Vermont. When William Arthur, Jr., was born, the oldest son dropped the William and retained the names Chester Alan, as he could do because of the death in infancy of his brother, Chester Abell. He later, according to the Hinman story, appropriated the birth record of the second son in order to sustain his American citizenship. No death record existed to prove this substitution because the father had sold the infant’s body to a medical school! On the basis of these allegations, the American public were assured that Arthur was a British subject and in consequence disqualified for the Vice Presidency or Presidency. It was a political maneuver, and, as such, ineffective. (from “Chester A. Arthur-A Quarter-Century of Machine Politics” by George F. Howe)
While the SCOTUS may very well brush aside (Dec 5) the pleas of Leo Donofrio et al, there is no way the issue of Barack Obama’s eligibility for president is going to go away anytime soon. Unless,of course, Mr. Obama has a change of heart and releases his birth certificate vault copy, his medical records, and his college records. That’s all the American people are asking and the matter could be put to rest so simply that the mind boggles at the thought of what he could be hiding. The Chicago Tribune, where this full page ad (PDF) appeared twice this week, weighs in today with a debunking article:
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider Friday whether to take up a lawsuit challenging President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship, a continuation of a New Jersey case embraced by some opponents of Obama’s election.
The meeting of justices will coincide with a vigil by the filer’s supporters in Washington on the steps of the nation’s highest court.
The suit originally sought to stay the election, and was filed on behalf of Leo Donofrio against New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells.
Legal experts say the appeal has little chance of succeeding, despite appearing on the court’s schedule. Legal records show it is only the tip of an iceberg of nationwide efforts seeking to derail Obama’s election over accusations that he either wasn’t born a U.S. citizen or that he later renounced his citizenship in Indonesia.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air goes out of his way to pooh pooh the whole affair and concludes by saying; “I’m sure the comments section will fill with various conspiracy theories over Indonesian school records, Kenyan births, and so on.” Morrissey was correct; he received a torrent of comments, most of them well thought out and on point. Nothing conspiratorial about them. Some sample comments:
–While this has been a tiresome episode, it seems to me that any and all persons seeking the highest office should provide evidence to support their eligibility for the office. The same goes for voter registrations; Self declaration of citizenship does not seem to be satisfactory in this day and age.
–While I agree this basically will fizzle out, why doesn’t he just release it to shut everyone up? Not doing so just looks bad, like there’s something to hide.
–Ed, if there is nothing to hide then why won’t Obama just show the long-form Certificate of Birth. Hawaii doesn’t even accept its own Certification of Live Birth for official proof for their Hawaii Homes Program (or whatever it’s called).Whether there is anything to this or not, if he doesn’t get transparent and just cough up the goods then his upcoming presidency will be even more tainted. It’s easy. Just show us, through the courts not freaking KOS or factcheck.org, the birth certificate. End of story.
–While he’s at it he ought to release his medical records, his tax records and his college records. If he’s gonna be our president we ought to finally get to know who he is and what he’s been up to.
–I had to provide a certified copy of my birth certificate to get a license, go to college, join the military, and get a civilian job. I had to provide high school transcripts to get into college, for my scholarship and to get into the military. I had to provide college transcripts to get into grad school.Why can’t the man who is about to enter the office of the President of the United States be required to do the same?!?!?! Why can’t he be expected to do what the average citizen has no problem doing?
Although not yet a sure thing, should Mr Obama be sworn in on Jan 20, 2009 without having been required to prove he is a “natural citizen”, or even that he was born in Hawaii, we are left with a President vulnerable to blackmail. One can imagine an unfriendly nation or entity in possession of the facts about Obama’s birth using that heretofore unrevealed information as a threat to force compliance with the enemies wishes. Attorney Edwin Vieira is quoted The Philadelphia Bulletin as follows:
The current (birth certificate) question is concerning the man who potentially could have his finger next to the nuclear button.
“[The birth certificate], in theory, should be there,” said Mr. Vieira. “What if it isn’t? Who knows, aside from Mr. Obama? Does Russian intelligence know it isn’t there? Does Chinese intelligence know it isn’t there? Does the CIA know that it isn’t there? Who is in a position to blackmail this fellow?”
This is precisely the danger that the founders considered when they demanded a higher standard of citizenship for a President than for any other federal office.. The question of “divided loyalties”, and the danger of a “dual citizen” becoming President was to be strictly avoided.
Who else may know, other than Obama himself, what the sealed Hawaiian birth certificate says? We can be fairly sure that person(s) in the Hawaii Department of Health have seen the document, or perhaps Gov Linda Lingle herself. Could this be the reason Gov Lingle was a “no show” at the national governors meeting with Mr. Obama?
“The common law is gone. The federal courts never applied the common law and even in the state courts it’s codified now.” (Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Nov 22, 2008)
LEO DONOFRIO COMMENTS ON JUDAH BENJAMIN ARTICLE CONCERNING NATURAL BORN CITIZEN AND THE COMMON LAW
Leo Donofrio has responded with his comments and corrections to the Judah Benjamin thesis on Barack Obama’s eligiblity which was published at TD Blog two days ago. Doonofrio writes:
While I enjoyed reading this article, and I agree with the conclusion – that Obama is not eligible – I disagree with the basis upon which that conclusion was made.
Specifically, I disagree that the common law is controlling on the issue of “natural born citizen”. It is “national law” which is controlling. I don’t know if Mr. Benjamin is a lawyer, but his reading, explanation and understanding of the natural born citizen issue is not exactly on point.
I do agree with Benjamin’s conclusion, that Obama is not a natural born citizen, but for the wrong reasons…..
Donofrio’s conclusion:
….All in all, Mr. Benjamin has made a valiant attempt to provide a clear analysis of the natural born citizen topic. Please do not assume I am bashing him. I respect his passion and research, but it’s not entirely accurate. And considering what Scalia just said to the Federalist Society about the common law being gone (only three days after my case was scheduled for conference), it’s important to keep things in their proper historical perspective.
This issue of how ineligible candidates were allowed on the ballot will be coming to a head on Dec 5 when the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has scheduled a conference on the merits of Leo Donofrio v. Nina Mitchell Wells, Secretary of State of the State of New Jersey – no. 08A047
Regarding local Connecticut case (Wrotnowski v CT Sec of State) which has also garnered national attention Donofrio notes:
Today we are watching for the SCOTUS AUTOMATED Docket to be updated with two important developments, one in Cort’s case and one in mine.
We hope the docket will reflect that Cort Wrotnowski has renewed his application to the Honorable Associate Justice Antonin Scalia as of this morning. Cort’s application for an emergency stay and/or injunction was denied by the Honorable Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on November 26, 2008. Cort sent it by Express mail on Saturday Nov. 29, 2008.
Below is a partial screen shot of a letter sent by Connecticut Secretary of State Bysiewicz to a person requesting information under Freedom of Information laws. Requested was information on file regarding Barack Obama’s place of birth. Sec. Bysiewicz replied that her office did not maintain files containing such information and further stated, incorrectly as it turns out, that Hawaiian officials had issued assurances that Obama was born there. In fact, they said only that Hawaii Health Department had an original Certificate of Live Birth on file. Most importantly they did not specify what the document says. Under Hawaiian law at the time of Obama’s birth, a person born overseas could be registered at some later date to obtain a Hawaiian birth certificate.
Below is reproduced the document wherby Barack Obama announced his presidential candidacy in Rhode Island. Title 17-23-17 of Rhode Island code reads in part:
(a) Any person is guilty of a felony who:
(1) Makes a declaration of candidacy or obtains, circulates, or causes to be circulated his or her nomination papers for an office, knowing or with good reason to know that he or she is not qualified as provided in this title to be his or her party’s candidate for the office;
(2) Knowingly or without reasonable and proper investigation makes any substantial misstatement in any declaration of candidacy, nomination paper, or affidavit provided for in this title;
(3) Signs a nomination paper when he or she knows that he or she is not qualified to sign;
On this form Barack Obama “declares that he is eligible under the laws and Constitution of The United States to serve in the Office of The Presidnet of The United States if elected…”
Perhaps one can sense now why Barack Obama chose constitutional law as his personal field of specialization. It is becoming increasingly clear that Mr. Obama has known all along that he is constitutionally ineligible for President of The United States but has nevertheless mounted an extremely successful campaign which threatens an end run around the Constitution and has brought him nearly to the U.S. Presidency. I will be writing here only about the issue of Barack Obama’s dual citizenship, acknowledged as fact on his website, because of his Kenyan Father’s status as a British subject. There are other important issues that need airing concerning the validity of the birth certificate posted on his web site and the possible forgery involving Mr. Obama’s Selective Service Registration.
Let me be clear from the outset that the constitutional issues clouding Barack Obama’s eligibility also pertain to John McCain (born in Panama), Governor Bill Richardson (a dual Mexico U.S. citizen), former Governor George Romney (Mitt Romney’s father, born in Mexico) and one Roger Calero, who was on the ballot this year as a candidate of the Socialist Workers Party. Calero is clearly not a U.S. citizen as he is a Nicaraguan here on a Green Card.
This issue of how ineligible candidates were allowed on the ballot will be coming to a head on Dec 5 when the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has scheduled a conference on the merits of Leo Donofrio v. Nina Mitchell Wells, Secretary of State of the State of New Jersey – no. 08A047
Attorney Donofrio’s case seems to be the most promising among the dozen or so that have been filed in various states as well as at SCOTUS. (A Connecticut case has found its way to SCOTUS: No. 08A469 Title: Cort Wrotnowski, Applicant v. Susan Bysiewicz, Connecticut Secretary of State)
A most interesting discussion of the legal ramifications surrounding the “natural born citizen” issue appeared today at TD Blog. (Also see The Federalist Blog) Contributor Judah Benjamin at TD Blog states at the outset that:
The next time you are feeling particularly sure “the fix is in” and that my abiding notion that the main problem with this Election isn’t a gigantic conspiracy but a mass of small conspiracies and cabals and a vast mass of negligence, incompetence, ignorance and just plain a-holeism consider the candidacy of Roger Calero. You might also want to think about Governor Bill Richardson’s candidacy, Richardson is a Mexican-American bipatride and a natural-born Mexican citizen, or national, under the Mexican Constitution. It isn’t just BHO II, not even close.
Judah Benjamin is not at all confidant that SCOTUS will hear Donofrio’s case :
….granting that Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy are all either Federalists, or inclined towards the Federalist position, it is my belief that Donofrio’s case will probably not be heard because the whole issue is, as one of my legal friends in England called it “a poisoned chalice”. The Justices can follow the Law and risk calumny and civil disorder, or ignore the plain Common Law reading of the Constitution and risk usurpation and civil disorder.
That’s it folks; “calumny and civil disorder” or “usurpation and civil disorder”! Whatever it is it won’t be pretty but The Constitution must be defended and amended if warranted.
Being president is about control, and tell me who ever controlled Bill or Hillary Clinton. They can’t control each other. … I think it’s because Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker and others have convinced Obama, ‘You’re going to have to focus like a laser on the economy. That’s issue Number One. And give Hillary and Bill the world.’ …
Perhaps you’re wondering why the proposed Obama administration is looking so familiar, kinda like a Clinton third term. It has certainly teed off the hard lefties among his supporters. Joe Conason over at Salon.com attempts to ‘splain away:
….Wasn’t Obama the One who would exorcise the Clintonite demons from our midst and cleanse the capital of their sins?….Obama no doubt understood that he would be courting disappointment or worse among those whose measure of him depended on his supposed distance from the Clintons. Having encouraged those assumptions as a matter of political necessity, he must have realized within days of his election that if he made selections based on merit, he would inevitably recruit many of the best and brightest of the last Democratic administration…..(now here comes the funny part! emphasis added))….
If her experience in national security and foreign policy were as shallow as advertised back then, after all, on what basis could he offer her the position of top diplomat? If her judgment were as poor as charged by him and others over the past two years, then why would he place such heavy responsibilities on her shoulders? If her honesty were as questionable as his campaign sometimes claimed, then how can he trust her now?
The answer is not necessarily that his campaign rhetoric was false or insincere, but that he developed respect for her over the difficult months of that harsh contest — and came to believe that she would be as formidable at his side as she was in his face.
What if the Clintons have something on Obama that they’re hanging over his head? Something so destructive and devastating to his Presidency that it could destroy it if made public? What if they’re using it to shoehorn their peeps into positions they want – essentially blackmailing him with whatever it could be? Doesn’t it just seem odd that Obama, who beat Clinton handily and won the campaign convincingly, would have to keep groveling and checking-in with Hillary and Bill? And why exactly are so many Clinton holdovers being seated in the new administration?
Gives one pause, eh? Especially with all of the lawsuits around the country seeking to settle the matter of Obama’s eligibility to be President. The most significant of these is the one by Leo Donofrio now before our Supreme Court and scheduled for conferencing by the justices on Dec. 5. For a fair and balanced account of the various cases please go to the America’s Right blog written by Jeff Schreiber. Be sure to read the sidebar there containing links to many articles and cases. Donofrio’s page* Natural Born Citizen on the blogtext.org site is now missing as well as all the other blogs there; appears to be a cyber attack. We have previously written about the eligibility question here and here.
*Update:Received word that Leo Donofrio’s site page has been resurrected here.
Steady Habits 