Could Obama's Citizenship Question Create a Constitutional Crisis

GCN Analysis

Obama: Papers Please...
Could Questions Over Barack Obama’s Citizenship Create a Constitutional Crisis?

By Keith Burton and Perry Hicks – GCN 10/27/08

A growing controversy stemming from allegations that Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Hussein Obama is not a natural-born American citizen intensified late last week. Friday, Oct. 24, a federal judge in Philadelphia threw out a lawsuit filed by attorney Philip J. Berg, a democrat, who claimed that Obama was not qualified to be president and that his name should be removed from the Nov. 4 ballot.

The judge in the case did not rule on the evidence, but primarily on whether Berg had standing as a citizen to present the lawsuit. As a result, the evidence suggests that the issue would remain even if Obama was elected and could trigger a constitutional crisis as the U.S. Constitution requires that presidents be born in America.

Alleged in the complaint filed in a Pennsylvania federal district court on Aug. 21, Berg claims that the evidence shows that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya and that the Democratic presidential standard bearer is not even an American citizen but a citizen of Indonesia and therefore ineligible to be president.

In a news release Berg plans to appeal the judges ruling to the Supreme Court.

Berg was quoted as saying, “This is a question of who has standing to stand up for our Constitution," Berg told Jeff Schreiber of America's Right blog. "If I don't have standing, if you don't have standing, if your neighbor doesn't have standing to ask whether or not the likely next president of the United States – the most powerful man in the entire world – is eligible to be in that office in the first place, then who does?"

Privately, lawyers complain that Federal Judges routinely avoid ruling directly on difficult cases by ruling that plaintiffs have no “standing.” Taxpayers, for example are almost never found to have standing in Federal suits challenging tax code. In Berg’s case against Obama, Federal District Judge R. Barclay Surrick ruled that citizens do not have standing in a matter of constitutional qualification for the highest office in the republic.

Judge Surrick even went on as far as claiming that Obama’s failure to meet the Constitutional requirement was "too vague and its effects too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters." (Ed- emphasis added.)

Judge Surrick's comment that the Constitutional requirement is "too vague and its effects too attenuated..." denies the public's trust that the candidate is one of them, a citizen whom there should be no question of allegiance.

Simply unbelievable.

Of the three branches of Federal Government, the executive branch alone is embodied in one person who is the commander-and-chief of the military, has access to the nuclear ICBM launch codes, is able to suspend habeas corpus in time of war, and can issue executive orders that can have the near impact of legislated law.

This issue of qualifications is often misunderstood. There is no “agency” of the federal or state government that examines a presidential candidate’s citizenship status. Berg went as far as researching to see if there was an agency of the government charged with enforcing the provisions of the Constitution if just this kind of thing were to happen. What he found was that there were none.

Vetting candidates for their qualifications and fitness to hold office is the function of the political party. While the Constitution and election laws of most states define what the qualifications of a candidate should be, the actual verification is determined by the candidate’s party and not a federal or state board or panel.

A key concern by everyone is why Obama won't release an actual certified copy of his Hawaiian birth records, as well as his college records, all of which he has kept from the public. A purported "record of live birth" presented on Obama's website to answer questions has been repeatedly challenged as unauthentic and this week, the governor of Hawaii sealed Obama's birth records from any outside examination. Only Obama himself can request the records.

Obama's decision not to reveal a certified copy of his records, including school records has been widely seen as an effort to hide something. Obama has been described as the most secretive democratic presidential candidate ever in some news reports.

To be heard in Federal court, Berg’s allegations are clearly well developed. The following timeline has been assembled from allegations taken from Berg's filings, Barack Obama's statements and biography, and other news and mainstream history sources.

Obama’s mother, 18 year old Ann Dunham, married to Obama Sr. February 2, 1961 and traveled to Kenya very pregnant with the infant we know today as Barack, but has also been called Barry.
Dunham, either finding out that her husband had another wife, or not liking the way Muslim men treat their wives, or possibly both, decides to return to her parents in Hawaii. The airlines will not permit her to board a plane as her delivery is imminent.
Dunham gives birth to a son in Mombassa, Kenya, August 4, 1961.
Dunham returns to Hawaii and according to Berg registers the birth August 8, 1961.
A newspaper clip birth announcement is extant from August 13, 1961.
Ann Dunham divorces Obama and later meets and marries Indonesian citizen Lolo Soetoro.
Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro and young Barry move to Jakarta, Indonesia with husband Lolo sometime in 1967. As the nation is undergoing great strife, only citizens may attend state schools. According to Berg, Lolo either adopts or otherwise certifies Barry as his child thus making Obama a “natural Indonesian citizen.” School records show Obama as Barry Soetoro and his religion as Muslim.
Barry Soetoro returns to Hawaii alone to live with his maternal grandparents in 1971. He attends the private Punahou School 5^th through 12^th grade. According to Berg, Dunham never takes the steps to repatriate Barry as a U.S. citizen.
After graduation from Punahou, Barry Obama goes off to attend Occidental College in Los Angles, California before transferring to Columbia University in New York. He will later attend Harvard Law School. Because Columbia and Harvard will not honor Berg’s Federal subpoenas, it is thought that Obama may have possibly attended on a foreign scholarship as an Indonesian national.
Obama admits attending "socialist conferences" and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he denies that he is a "hard-core academic Marxist," a charge made in 2004 by U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes. However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis
Obama’s undergraduate work is in political science with a specialization in international relations.
Barry returns home from college on break and announces that he would like to be known hereafter as “Barack.”
Obama traveled to Pakistan in 1981 with Pakistani friends at a time when Pakistan allegedly would not permit entry by U.S. citizens. Obama is alleged by Berg to have entered Pakistan with his Indonesian passport.
After graduation from Columbia, Obama works in New York for four years first for Business International Corporation, persistently reported as a CIA front organization because of its business role of researching international economics and politics. Obama then shifts to the New York Interest Research Group, a non-profit student run political organization not associated with Columbia University.
Obama subsequently relocates to Chicago to be the director for The Developing Communities Project working in the city’s far south side. Additionally, Obama did consulting and instructional work for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing group inspired by and built on the ideas of the famous radical, and self-styled “professional” community organizer, Saul Alinsky.

If one just scans the top ten quotes attributed to Saul Alinsky, one sees the entire design of the present Democrat political machine and the reason why someone like McCain is helpless before it. To defeat it one must counter-attack it but in very clever ways that prevent them from assuming a sympathetic “victim” position. They are not above infiltrating your ranks for the sole purpose of having one embarrassing you. To them there is no honor. To them, winning is everything, and they will never give up. All of the “community organizers” are patterned after Alinsky. One of their hallmarks is to be paid for their revolutionary services, so be astute to follow the money trail.

Obama attends Harvard Law School where he was also selected as first, black editor, and later, black president of the Harvard Law Review, graduating in 1991.
During his law school summers, Obama worked first for the Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin and later Hopkins & Sutter.
After graduation, Obama returned to Chicago where The University of Chicago offered him a book writing fellowship as part of his recruitment package to teach constitutional law.
The book, Dreams of My Father was to take one year to write. When either a manuscript didn’t materialize, or a manuscript of sufficient quality was not produced, some believe William Ayres ghost wrote the book for him.
The official line is that Dreams was written over several months in 1995 in Bali where Obama and his wife Michelle retired for just that purpose.
While Obama waited to begin teaching at the University of Chicago, he directed Illinois chapter of Project Vote, an ACORN type organization targeting African Americans founded by Left-Wing lawyer Sandy Newman.
In 1993, Obama joined civil rights law firm Davis, Minor, Barnhill, and Galland.
Obama’s law license became inactive in 2002. According to Berg, Obama’s Illinois BAR application stated that he had never used another name other than Barack Hussein Obama, an outright lie as he, again according to Berg, has gone by the following names: Barack Obama, Barry Soetoro, Barry Obama, Barry Dunham, and Barack Dunham.
Also in 1992, Obama was a founding member of Public Allies board of directors, supposedly resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding director for Public Allies Chicago. Public Allies is a taxpayer supported Left wing nonprofit organization with a nebulous “Our mission is to advance new leadership to strengthen communities, nonprofits and civic participation” statement.
From 1994 until 2002 served on the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation, another hard Left “charitable” organization that funds a broad range of programs from educational and training for low income workers to research to reduce gun ownership including the funding of anti-gun groups.
Obama served from 1995 to 2002 on the board of directors, and 1995 to 1999 as founding president and chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization co-authored by William Ayers of Weathermen fame- by then associate professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Anne Hallett, executive director of the Cross Cities Project, and Warren Chapman, senior program officer for education at the Joyce Foundation.
Annenberg Challenge has a connection to Newton Minow of Sidley & Austin, one of the firms Obama worked during his summers while in law school.
Obama served on the board of directors from 1993 to 2002 for the Woods Fund of Chicago, a philanthropic organization that was the first to fund the Developing Communities Project, the organization that first brought Obama to Chicago .

The Chicago community of professional radicals had formed an amazingly well interlocked, if not incestuous network of organizations. They served on each other’s boards and saw to it that public and private money was spread around. They also looked to growing new leadership from the grassroots level.

1995- political career was launched in William Ayres home when he was introduced to about a dozen influential people by Alice Palmer, then state senator. Palmer was giving her blessing to Obama to run for her seat.
When Palmer failed to win the congressional seat (won by Jesse Jackson Jr.) she petitioned to run for her state senate seat again, anyway. Obama was able to challenge Parker’s signatures and those of the other challengers disqualifying all of them, thus he ran unopposed.
According to Erick Erickson writing in Human Events, June 10, 2008, Obama sought out and won the functionally communist New Party endorsement for his state senate bid. This is significant in that by this time, according to Erickson, the New Party and ACORN were virtually one and the same.
Obama served in the Illinois senate from 1997 to 2004. While Obama’s legislative record authorship-wise is lackluster, he did sponsor a number of bills one could expect of a community organizer: Efforts to stop racial profiling such as requiring police to keep records of who they stop for traffic violations, controlling payday loan companies, and taping homicide interrogations.
2004- Obama runs for the U.S. Senate with Left Wing political strategist and fellow Chicagoan David Axelrod at the helm. His Republican opponent, Jack Ryan withdrew from the race due to a sex scandal involving his actress wife, Jeri Ryan.
Rather than have Obama win another election unopposed, the Republicans recruit Alan Keyes who attempts to establish residency and launch a campaign with over two months to election day. Keyes had told me in an interview that his motive was Obama’s state senate vote against requiring doctors to render medical aid to delivered babies that had somehow survived their abortions.
Obama wins handily with 70% of the vote serving in the U.S. Senate from 2005 to present.
February 10, 2007 Obama announces his run for president of the United States. Television media powerhouse and fellow Chicagoan Oprah Winfrey signs on to promote his candidacy.
After Oprah, the Hollywood set at first defect from his chief rival, fellow U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton, in singular numbers. However, over time, the rate picks up until it is a mass exodus leaving Clinton largely isolated.
Kennedy family throws support to Obama in our estimation to rest control of the party away from the Clintons and the centrist DLC faction.
Donations pour into Obama via the internet bypassing the Clinton’s party control. Much of it is said to be from small donors. However, it appears an untold but very large amount of cash has come from suspicious and possibly overseas sources in the form of under $200 donations that do not have to be reported. Some of these “small donors” have been see to have given tens of thousands of dollars- far about the legal maximum.
Obama reports collections of far beyond $600 million.
ACORN and some other activist groups have been found to have registered thousands of bogus “voters” making potentially all of their hundreds of thousands of new voter registrations suspect. Voter rolls, particularly in hotly contested states are in an unbelievable state of disorder.
To make matters worse, the Democrats have protested requiring photo identification at the polls, even though voters are registered at their local Department of Motor Vehicles.
Now, U.S. District Court Judge Surrick has ruled that Berg does not have “standing” to sue Obama in that effectively a non citizen becoming president in contravention to the U.S. Constitution is "too vague and its effects too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters."

With Judge Surrick’s dismissal, it would appear that Berg’s feared constitutional crisis is now upon us and if Obama is elected, a cabal of Chicago neo-socialists is about to take over the country. And don’t count on the judiciary to make things right after the election. Some of these men and women in black evidently appear all too happy to ignore the Constitution, that is until Obama is ready to replace them.

To some others, Barack Obama might be the ultimate illegal alien.

Additional Information:

Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis - americanthinker.com

Obama Must Stand Up, or Step Down - newswithviews.com

About the Authors.....

Perry Hicks is a former Mississippi Coast resident and was a correspondent for the old Gulfport Star Journal. He has appeared on Fox News Channel. Perry has also hosted his own radio talk show on the auto industry with a mix of politics. Perry is a former college professor and is a senior writer for GCN on stories of national importance with local interests. His articles can be found in the GCN Archive Contact Perry at: arielsquarefour@hotmail.com

Keith Burton is owner and editor of GulfCoastNews.com. He can be reached at keith@gulfcoastnews.com