Brian,

I think that “power” would still be the major influence to hold office. With that power these politicians would be able to set themselves up for “after” government service. Term limits would definetly help but I believe a strong understanding of and belief in moral values would be the ticket. We have always had crooked politicians but the majority of the populace had moral values. Now we have crooked politians with a majority of the populace having few values-especially knowing the difference between right and wrong. I think the simplist thing to do would be to enact a law that says any politician that misdirects, subverts or ignores the constitution while in office shall be publicly hung. In short time you would be back to parties with distinct ideologies. I don’t think (or really care) zimzo would like this idea.

I just want gridlock. When the federal government “gets something done,” it’s US their doing, and they don’t even have the courtesy to give us a reach-around.

The issue of Obama’s birth certificate is an example of people just not caring about our Constitution–why is he continuing to refuse to provide it? Friends of his reportedly have said they thought he was Indonesian, and had some sort of financial aid based on being Indonesian at Columbia, and he traveled on an Indonesian passport to Pakistan after college, at a time when Americans were prohibited from traveling there… for those of us who do care, why won’t Obama just produce the documents that prove he really is a natural born citizen, if in fact that is the case? Sorry I cannot link the following, but a good article:

-

Subject: What if he isn’t US born?

On Friday, the Supreme Court will hold a hearing on the
issue of Obama’s
birth, whether in fact he is qualified in Constitutional
terms, to be POTUS.

(Meanwhile, there’s also a challenge brewing on
Hillary’s nomination to be
Secretary of State! Stay Tuned.)

Obama Fomenting A Constitutional Crisis: Constitutional
Lawyer Discusses
Ramifications Of Controversy
John P. Connolly, The Bulletin 12/01/2008

Controversy continues to surround President-elect Barack
Obama’s eligibility
to serve as president, and a case involving his birth
certificate waits for
its day before the U.S. Supreme Court. A constitutional
lawyer said were it
to be discovered that Mr. Obama is not a natural-born U.S.
citizen, it would
have grave consequences for the nation. According to the
Constitution, a
president must be a natural born citizen of the U.S. Mr.
Obama’s critics
have failed to force him legally to produce his original
birth certificate,
and Mr. Obama has resisted any attempt to make him do so.

Currently, only Hawaii Department of Health officials have
access to Mr.
Obama’s original records. Some of Mr. Obama’s
critics have said he was born
in Kenya and have claimed he is a citizen of Kenya,
Indonesia, or even a
British subject. Edwin Vieira, a constitutional lawyer who
has practiced
for 30 years and holds four degrees from Harvard, said if
it were to be
discovered Mr. Obama were not eligible for the presidency,
it would cause
many problems. They would be compounded if his
ineligibility were discovered
after he had been in office for a period of time.

“Let’s assume he wasn’t born in the
U.S.,” Mr. Vieira told The Bulletin.
“What’s the consequence? He will not be eligible.
That means he cannot be
elected validly. The people and the Electoral College
cannot overcome this
and the House of Representatives can’t make him
president. So what’s the
next step? He takes the oath of office, and assuming
he’s aware he’s not a
citizen, then it’s a perjured oath.”

Any appointments made by an ineligible president would have
to be recalled,
and their decisions would be invalidated. “He may have
nominated people to
different positions; he may have nominated people to the
judicial branch,
who may have been confirmed, they may have gone out on
xecutive duty and
done various things,” said Mr. Vieira. “The
people that he’s put into the
judicial branch may have decided cases, and all of that
needs to be
unzipped.”

Mr. Vieira said Obama supporters should be the ones
concerned about the
case, because Mr. Obama’s platform would be discredited
it he were forced to
step down from the presidency later due to his
ineligibility, were it to be
discovered. “Let’s say we go a year into this
process, and it all turns out
to be a flim-flam,” said Mr. Vieira. “What’s
the nation’s reaction to that?
What’s going to be the reaction in the next U.S.
election? God knows. It has
almost revolutionary consequences, if you think about
it.”

Mr. Vieira said Mr. Obama’s continued silence and
avoidance in the release
of his birth certificate is an ethical issue because of the
dire
consequences that could be caused by a possible
constitutional crisis. “If
he were my client and this question came up in civil
litigation, if there
was some reason that his birth status was relevant and the
other side wanted
him to produce the thing and he said ‘no,’ I would
tell him, ‘you have about
15 minutes to produce it or sign the papers necessary to
produce the
document, or I’m resigning as your attorney,” said
Mr. Vieira. “I don’t
think any ethical attorney would go ahead on the basis that
his client could
produce an objective document in civil litigation [and
refused to do so].”

Further, Mr. Vieira cited a fraud ruling in a 1977 case
called U.S. v.
Prudden, which he feels applies in this case. “Silence
can only be equated
with fraud when there is a legal and moral duty to speak or
when an inquiry
left unanswered would be intentionally misleading,”
the ruling reads. “We
cannot condone this shocking conduct … If that is the
case we hope our
message is clear. This sort of deception will not be
tolerated and if this
is routine it should be corrected immediately.” Mr.
Vieira said such an
ethical question of representing a client who refused to
produce such a
basic document is important, even in a small civil case.

The current 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?” Mr. Vieira
explained all laws
have to be submitted to the president.

In the event that there is no valid president, then no laws
passed by
Congress in that administration would be legally null and
void. Because of
that, this case will probably not go away, even after Mr.
Obama takes the
oath of office. “If you don’t produce it, you
think it’s going to go away,”
he said. “There are all these cases challenging Mr.
Obama, and some
challenging secretaries of state, and they run into this
doctrine called
standing.”

Mr. Vieira explained although legal standing is difficult
to get around in
Federal courts, the document could be produced in any
criminal cases
stemming from legislation passed in the Obama
administration. “Let’s assume
that an Obama administration passes some of these
controversial pieces of
legislation he has been promising to go for, like the FOCA
(Freedom of
Choice) Act,” said Mr. Vieira. “I would assume
that some of those surely
will have some severe civil or criminal penalties attached
to them for
violation. You are now the criminal defendant under this
statute, which was
passed by an Obama Congress and signed by President Obama.
Your defense is
that is not a statute because Mr. Obama is not the
president. You now have a
right and I have never heard this challenged, to subpoena
in a criminal
case, anyone who has relevant evidence relating to your
defenses.

And you can subpoena them duces tecum, meaning ‘you
shall bring with you the
documents.’ ” Such a criminal defense would enable
the defendant to subpoena
any person to testify in court and any person to bring
evidence in their
possession to the court. Further, records could be
subpoenaed directly, in
the case of a birth certificate. Once the record could be
subpoenaed, the
birth certificate could be examined by forensic experts,
who would then be
able to testify to the document’s veracity as expert
witnesses. Any movement
by the judges to make a special exception to the president
in a criminal
case would hurt the legitimacy of that presidential
administration.

“I can’t believe I’m the only lawyer who would
think of this,” said Mr.
Vieira. “I think any criminal lawyer defending against
one of these
politically charged statutes is going to come up with this.
That means it
will never go away until that document is laid down on the
table and people
say, ‘yes, there it is.’ And therefore they’re
caught. If people keep
challenging this and the judges out of fear keep saying
‘no, go to jail, go
to jail, go to jail’ then that’s the end of the
Obama administration’s
legitimacy.

On the other hand if they open the file and it’s not
there, then that’s
really the end of the administration’s
legitimacy.” Several court cases in
the birth certificate controversy are waiting admission to
the Supreme
Court. A gathering of judges will meet on Dec. 5 to decide
whether or not to
hear a case from New Jersey, and a decision is still
pending on a case from
a lawyer in Pennsylvania. Should four of the judges vote to
hear the case in
the Dec. 5 meeting, then it will be scheduled for hearings.
Court cases from
Connecticut and New York have also applied for hearings at
the U.S. Supreme
Court.

John P. Connolly can be reached at jconnolly@thebulletin.us

Great article on the influence of MONEY on politicians, specifically money from the Auto industry.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/03/cbsnews_investigates/main4646424.shtml

Stay Puft,

I concur with Jack, Obama has fought tooth and nail to release any documents. The only thing that was released was a “short form” registration of birth that was filed in Hawaii, but these forms are routinely used to record foreign births also. Good credible evidence is shown that the short form document copied and put on the internet, was a forgery. The full birth certificate would show which hospital, which doctor, and would name the mother and father as well as the exact time and date–that has never been provided. Nor have the passport information, or the school records that supposedly show Obama claimed to be a citizen of Indonesia. Why fight the release of these documents? If he really was born in Hawaii, then why not release the real vault birth certificate, that shows this? What is he hiding? What is the down side to releasing this information? Is it worth litigating multiple lawsuits to fight the release? I think it is up to around 20 lawsuits now, many in state courts, several in federal court, two in the US Supreme court– very prominent people are suing, including some delegates to the electoral college… and why isn’t the press all over this? Why can’t we see the original documents? Why is Obama’s “privacy” more important that our right to make sure the Constitution is upheld? Lots of questions…

Completely off topic: Yes, there is a “Dancing with DOGS” special on Animal Planet this Saturday.

http://www.dogchannel.com/dog-news/2008/11/27/dancing-with-dogs-debuts-on-animal-planet.aspx

I have watched some of the competitions on youtube and think they are hilarious. We have a border collie and most of the champion dancing dogs are border collies and golden retreivers.

Stay Puff,

The “certificate of live birth” is a registration in Hawaii that can be used for births that did not take place there–Obama’s sister has a certificate of live birth registered in Hawaii too, but there is no dispute she was born in Indonesia. The doctoring was alleged because three different versions of the “certificate” were posted on the Obama website, one with the seal, and the others no seal, and one showed a different island as the registration site…

Yes, it is a valid certificate of live birth, but it does not prove anything, other than that Obama was born (somewhere) and the birth was subsequently registered in Hawaii, as allowed under their laws.

…have you seen his sister’s cert.? Does it say HONOLULU, or Indonesia?

If the document doesn’t prove that he was born in Hawaii, why would he forge it? Why wouldn’t he get a forgery of the form that would prove he was born in Hawaii?

In other words, does it not show that he was in fact born in Hawaii (despite the fact that it explicitly states so) or is it forged, or both?

I’m sure he could have gotten his hands on the real thing (especially since the director of the State Health Department would have to be in on the conspiracy, since she claims she’s seen the birth certificate and that it checks out) Did he accidentally forge the wrong document?

Why was their a birth announcement in the Honolulu paper?

does the fact that the embossed seal didn’t show up well on a scanned version mean it wasn’t there? I have a photocopy of my birth certificate and it isn’t obvious that it’s embossed.

these rumors are, literally, incredible!

I think we would be wise to delay a bit any judgement of the new president as a “compromising Obama” who would not force his left-leaning ideas on a more centrist populace. Obama may not always have a real choice in the matter.

A. Although Obama was clearly put in office by a swing of “centrist” voters toward him, he still has a large and important base of left-leaners who bought lock, stock, and barrel into a future of radical change. Some did so in a state of ideological awareness and savvy, others through rather uneducated emotion, e.g., “He’s going to put gas in my tank and pay my rent.” If they do not see evidence of that radical change, just how long will they stay quiet and pacified, especially when they are aware that virtually all the levers of administrative and legislative power are in the hands of the liberals in their own party?

I suspect that, at some point, Obama is going to have to “reach out” to them, even though he will realize that it might cost him re-election through an adverse reaction from the right and center. If he does not, he may face from the left the same sort of persistent and angry criticism that Bush got from the Republican right. “President Obama, we supported you because you portrayed yourself as left-of-center and devoted to radical change. Why don’t you start acting like you meant it?” Where does Obama go if he causes an erosion of his left base? Down the same road as Bush and McCain because of the erosion on the right.

B. In my view, Obama may have a problem on the Hill as well. He has a huge majority in the House. He is two seats away from a filibuster-proof Senate plus he has Rhinos like Snow, Collins, etc. as wild cards on that issue. If he becomes a “compromiser” on radical change, how will he deal with a Capitol full of totally inflated egos, many dedicated big-time to radical change and operating out of relatively “safe” constituencies,e.g., Waxman out of Hollywood; Schumer out of New York, Frank out of Massachusetts, etc? Many of these people have been in a long-time, radical thirst for power, and now they would appear to have that power, as well as a visible pathway toward finally realizing their goals. Are they going to be thinking of future elections or of getting what they have long desired because they are able to do so right now? I believe that many of these people see radical change as a personal legacy and to heck with the political map a decade or two down the road.

If this were another time in our history, I might be inclined to believe that wiser heads would prevail on the Hill; but I see in this modern era a whole lot of “non-compromisers” up there with their hands on real power. Moreover, I do not see the kind of strong leadership in either the House or Senate which would help Obama keep a lid on it in the way that Sam Rayburn, Hubert Humphrey, and Scoop Jackson, for example, helped JFK. In my book, both Pelosi and Reid lack the skill to do that. They are two rather inept prima donas in legislative bodies full of prima donas of far greater skill. I, in fact, would not be surprised to see Obama, if he is truly committed to “compromise”, having to jawbone or even use the veto pen or pocket veto against the Congressional leaders of his own party.

Indeed, Obama has shown some tendency toward “compromise” during the transition, both in his appointments and in his stated willingness to hold off on some of his campaign promises if actual circumstances on the ground dictate that he must do so. One wonders, however, just how long he will be able to do this before he finds himself between a rock and a hard place. I know that the traditional wisdom has long been to run from the right or left and govern from the center. However, it appears to me that we have seen over the past decade or two a not very pleasant shift in the mentality of the electorate away from “compromise” and toward “I want what’s mine and I want it now!”

It’s an interesting question to be posed to Obama supporters. Did you vote for him because he promised radical change or because you thought he would be a “compromiser” who would solve our problems and bring some peace to the political and economic battlefields? Be honest in your answers.

Sally,

“It does not show that he was born in Hawaii, it is just a registration of his birth, which registration was filed in Hawaii. The birth could have been anywhere.”

How to you interpret the part that reads:

“City, Town, or Location of Birth:
HONOLULU”

If I were registering a birth that took place in Indonesia, I’d type “Indonesia” in that box. wouldn’t you?

The director of the Dept. of Health claims to have seen the “vault” form, and verified it. So is she in on it? If she is, why couldn’t Obama get the appropriate doc. forged? …or have you given up on the ‘forgery’ tact?

Wolverine,

I come from a fairly liberal area, but a lot of the obama supporters I know aren’t as radical as you make them out to be. Sure, people want stuff like an end to the Iraq war, expanded health care, a more progressive tax structure, but I think this idea that a bunch of crazy commies got Obama in office. Sure, there are probably crazy commie fringe groups that voted for Obama, if they voted. Just as I’d imagine that the KKK vote went to McCain. That doesn’t mean he owes anything to them. Bush won because a huge amount of right wing Christians voted for him thinking he was sent be Jesus. Obama won because the centrist swing voters broke his way, and because he’s a super effective community organizer.

the right made this characature of obama as a radical socialist when he was campaigning, and now they’re applying that same characature to his supporters, but in truth it rings hollow.

Who (what organization, committee, etc.) determines that a presidential candidate meets with constitutional requirements for office? And being as how running for elected office makes the candidate an open book, is it not then the right of the people to know all? There is absolutely no earthly reason why Barry’s birth certificate should be kept secret. It should have been produced before he was even allowed to be on the ballot. Conspiracy theory? Any moron that WOULDN’T want to verify what is a constitutional requirement should just shut the pie-hole. Better yet, move to a communist country. If you can spend upwards of $800,000 to KEEP from having to produce said documents, it would be relatively easy to bribe a few individuals to lie on your behalf. Anymore, people are easily corrupted.

About the birth notice. Some hospitals used to and some still do print recent births in local newspapers with the parents permission, but that notice was not a hospital notice.

Back then and currently you can announce the birth of your child in your newspaper for free. The Washington Post still welcomes birth announcements submitted by the parents.

Being that Hawaii was where his mother attended school and it was the home of his grandparents, his mother or grandparents most likely placed the notice to announce his birth to family and friends. It does not prove that he was born there. Normally it would list the hospital, date, time, weight, etc.

It has also been discovered recently that his mother only attended college there in Hawaii for the Fall semester (1960) and her Barry was born in August 1961. She did not return to the college until Spring 1963, then she went back for Summer 1966.

So now all these big gaps are appearing that are different from what he has written and otherwise.

Finally, Hawaii will not accept that particular birth registration for homestead or legal purposes in Hawaii, which leads you to wonder why they issued them at all. If he can’t use it for legal purposes in Hawaii, he should not be able to use it to prove anything else.

Just recently they changed their laws or the law will soon become in effect, they will no longer be issuing these to anyone. The only birth records that will be recorded will be from the hospital. Which is another reason to suspect their is a problem.

When I read comments by sally, Marjorie and Had Enough, I wonder why our mental institutions don’t provide more constructive activities for their patients besides letting them surf the Internet all day.

and once again, does anyone want to explain to me what this means:

“City, Town, or Location of Birth:
HONOLULU”

Annenberg was a republican. he served under nixon. saying the foundation is a “friend of obama” is a far cry from demonstrating that they’d lie about this kind of cover up

has anyone here seen his sister’s cert.? If so, let’s get a link

Hawaii Revised Statute 338-17.8 allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the childs birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence. The parents would be issued a Certification of Live Birth. This is not proof of where the child was born. It only proves that the parents claimed Hawaii as their main place of residence for the prior year. The vault birth certificate would have all of the information on the hospital where Obama was born. The short form birth certificate provided, also, has had inconsistencies and changes–like it states the “race” of the father is African, but in 1961 anyone would have put down “negro.” I am looking for his sister’s Hawaiian certificate of live birth, which I have seen on the internet and will post it when I find it.

Brian, there were issues a long time ago, but it was after his grandmother and several other relatives in Kenya said that they were present at his birth in a hospital they named in Africa that it exploded. It was reported that the hospital has sealed all their birth records just prior to our election.

She also said that his mother was not really welcome there because the family was not happy with a white woman. She said that his mother left with him several days after his birth.

Stay Puft, Obama was given a Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office.

During Obama’s tenure as Annenberg chairman (about 3 years), William Ayers’ education projects received substantial funding. Ayers contributed in starting the Annenberg Challenge, securing a $50 million grant to reform the Chicago Public Schools.

Ayers also served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago for three years.

It will take years to sort through the relationship between Obama, Ayers and the Annenberg records, which from what I have seen someone is pursuing.

There is more about Obama and the Annenberg’s relationship that I can’t remember, they were close and as I said they own Factcheck.

The media, whether the major networks or newspapers or otherwise did not portray a fair analysis of Obama or the issues surrounding him, they avoided presenting any story no matter what the content if it was even slightly negative towards him. So why wouldn’t any other outlet or institution that had ever hired or befriended him.

I have read that when he ran for the state senate, he ran one of the most ruthless, vicious smear campaigns. It was reported that even where children were involved, he set out to ruin people.

I wonder how the Kennedy’s feel about Ayers and the Sirhan Sirhan book dedication since I read that Obama praised the book.

Another interesting twist: Obama states he is a “native” American on his website, born in Hawaii. But back in 1961 to be a natural born citizen both of your parents had to be Americans, and his father was a British citizen, since Kenya was a British colony. Interesting argument about what a natural born citizen is, and means in the Constitution, which exempted the Americans at that time who had one or both parents who were British subjects… Have not read all the material, but some of the lawsuits apparently are arguing, that even if Obama was born in Hawaii, to an 18 year old mother, who was an American at the time, he is still not a natural born citizen under the strict confines of that definition in the Constitution, due to his father’s nationality. The Constitution did not want dual allegiances, and wanted only those who had a single allegiance, natural born, with both parents Americans, to be able to serve as POTUS.