If the records that verified our president was born in Hawai’i and is a “natural-born American citizen” did not complete or end at state level registration through STEP TWO, those records are completely empty and unfounded for all legal purposes. ... In other words, The State Registrar says, “Something stinks here and I ain’t puttin’ any of it on record.”

...“COMPLETED RECORDS” – MEANING ONE WHERE ENOUGH EVIDENCE HAS BEEN COLLECTED, REVIEWED AND ACCEPTED, PER POLICY AND PROCEDURE, TO RECORD THE VITAL STATISTICS WITH THE STATE REGISTRAR. IT IS AT THIS POINT THAT A FILED CERTIFICATE APPLICATION OF ANY KIND HAS BEEN ‘ACCEPTED BY THE STATE REGISTRAR.’ It is now “ON RECORD IN ACCORDANCE TO STATE POLICY AND PROCEDURE.”... OR the application for an amended certificate has been ‘accepted by the state registrar.’

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S COLB IS A REPRODUCTION OF A ‘FILE.’ President Obama has a ‘reproduction of a FILE’ while other samples of Hawaiian COLBs found online are ‘reproductions of RECORDS’ that have been accepted and therefore completed with the State Registrar using the support of sufficient evidence required by the state to register the Birth Certificate on record.. (Source: Misstickly.)

Unveiled! Hawaii's 1961 long-form birth certificates

Real documents include name of doctor, hospital

By Jerome R. Corsi


Eleanor Nordyke displays photostats of her twin daughters' birth certificates (Courtesy Honolulu Advertiser)

Images of two 1961 Hawaii birth certificates similar to the one President Obama purportedly has on file have now been unveiled. The Honolulu Advertiser published photostats of the original long-form birth certificates of twin daughters born to Eleanor Nordyke at Kapi'olani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital Aug. 5, 1961, one day after Obama was supposedly born at the same facility.

The Nordykes' certificates include information missing from the short-form document for Obama published online, including the name of the hospital, the name of the attending physician, name and address of the parents, the race of the parents and the race of the baby. As WND reported yesterday (27 Jul), Hawaii's director of health responded to the growing controversy over the White House's refusal to release Obama's original long-form birth certificate by issuing a statement about the document in apparent contravention of Hawaiian law. Dr. Chiyome Fukino declared she has seen the "original birth records" that verify Obama was born in Hawaii and is a "natural-born American citizen," the Honolulu Advertiser reported. (SITE NOTE: Dr. Fukino's statement that the Certification of Live Birth PROVES that Obama is a "natural born citizen" is NOT true. In fact, it proves just the opposite. Obama was born a dual citizen of the US-Britain until he became a dual citizen of US-Kenya upon Kenya gaining its independence. As such, Obama does not meet the criteria of TWO American parents and being born on American soil. The Certification may satisfy the "soil" portion, but being a dual citizen at birth disqualifies Obama under Article II of the Constitution.)

But in two separate telephone interviews with WND, Janice Okubo, the health department's public information officer, told WND that Hawaii law prohibited her from commenting on the birth records of any specific person. WND also reported the Hawaii Department of Heath affirmed that no paper birth certificate records were destroyed when the department moved to electronic record-keepng in 2001.


Photostat of Susan Nordyke's 1961 Hawaii birth certificate (Courtesy Honolulu Advertiser)

The statement to WND by Janice Okubo, public information officer for state's health department, contradicted CNN U.S. President Jon Klein, who ordered host Lou Dobbs to quit discussing Obama's birth certificate on the air. Klein insisted the issue was "dead" because Obama's original long-form birth certificate had been destroyed by the Hawaii DOH in the conversion to electronic files.

A close examination of the birth certificates issued by Kapi'olani to the Nordyke twins shows the registration number precedes the number given Obama, even though the future president was born a day earlier. Susan Nordyke was born at 2:12 p.m. Hawaii time and was given No. 151 – 61 – 10637, which was filed with the Hawaii registrar Aug. 11, 1961. Gretchen Nordyke followed at 2:17 p.m. and was given No. 151 – 61 – 10638, which was also filed with the Hawaii registrar Aug. 11, 1961.


FactCheck.org Copy

According to a version of Obama's purported short-form certificate available from FactCheck.org, Obama was given a higher registration number than the Nordyke twins. The online image indicates the number is No. 151 – 1961 – 10641, even though he was born Aug. 4, 1961, the day before the twins, and his birth was registered with the Hawaii registrar three days earlier, Aug. 8, 1961.

The middle figure in Obama's purported registration also is different than the Nordykes'. Obama's is 1961, indicating the year, while the Nordykes' is merely 61. One explanation for the out-of-order serial numbers might be that several serialized stacks of birth certificates were made available at different hospitals. Another possibility is that Obama's number is not a genuine registration number created in 1961 but was issued when the short-form document was generated during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Eleanor Nordyke told WND she thinks her twins got lower numbers because she went into the hospital Aug. 4, 1961, and was in labor for 20 hours before she delivered. She speculates that Ann Dunham came in after her and was given a later number, even though Dunham's baby was born earlier. Nordyke's twins were not born until the afternoon of the next day.

WND was unable to receive a response from Hawaii officials regarding the state's procedure for issuing registration numbers. (Source: WND.)

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Example Certificate of Live Birth form (1978) (SITE NOTE: Different from the 1961 form shown above)


Hawaii State Seal

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The Mainstream Media started in Jul 2009 to ridicule the "birther" movement despite the polls that says 28% of Republicans are "birthers" -- and the growing numbers of independents questioning Obama's birth certificate.

Kenyan Birth Certificate Hoaxes

Alleged Obama's Birth Certificate Bidding reaches $900,000! (Jun 2009) At the end of Jun 2009, an offer for the KENYAN birth certificate of Obama was offered on Ebay. At first the item was removed by EBay three times over what the seller related was a technical action to protect his security. The seller is supposedly selling his "story" and the birth certificate was a "gift" that comes with it. As of 30 Jun 2009, the bidding had just exceeded $900k with no cap. Seller agrees to allow buyer to verify in person with document specialist prior to paying. If buyer deems document fraudulent, buyer can walk. Nothing may come of this, but it excited many of the "birthers" who believe Obama was born in Kenya. (Source: Ebay.) (SITE NOTE: We are NOT one of these "birthers" but do believe his birth is very suspicious.)

The eBay seller, known to the public only as "colmado_naranja," alleged he obtained President Obama's birth certificate while traveling Africa. He explained that Kenyans boasted that Barack Obama II was born in the Coast Provincial Hospital in Mombasa at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961, which correlates with speculation that has existed over the president's birthplace since even prior to his election. The eBay website, however, has a policy forbidding the sale of certain government documents, which presumably led to the auction page being removed.

While WND has made repeated contacts with colmado_naranja, the validity of his claims – as well as the previously advertised "Kenyan birth certificate" – remained a mystery. The seller refused to allow the document to be seen or photographed -- a reasonable view given that it would immediately be copied and disseminated thus lowering its sale value. In the original listing, colmado_naranja explained, "I am not posting any photos of the birth certificate here on eBay. I have not seen this birth certificate anywhere on the Internet, to post it here on eBay would lead to a flood of facsimiles on the Internet. This would inadvertently decrease the value of the certificate as well."

On 30 Jun 2009, the auction was stopped. A notice from eBay administrators is now warning people who have contacted the seller of an allegedly genuine copy of Barack Obama's birth certificate – from Mombasa, Kenya – not to contact the seller again. Furthermore, the sale page offering a dissertation on "the truth" about Obama's birth – with bids reported by WND readers to have exceeded $1 million – has been pulled from the auction website for the fifth time. Ebay warned, "Do *not* respond to the sender either through the eBay system or your email account. An offer to buy or sell an item outside of eBay is against eBay policies, might be fraudulent, and will not be covered by eBay protection programs."

The seller named, colmado_naranja, stated, "There will be no more auctions for Obama's b.c., but this may interest you. Ebay item # 160345795373. 'Autographed photo of Smith and Andylenny abroad.' Again you'll have to search by listing number for the first several hours until the title becomes searchable. I'm turning the b.c. over to WorldNetDaily and Joseph Farah. Thanks for your support. You are appreciated. - colmado_naranja"

What happens next is anyone's guess. As of 1 Jul 2009, World Net Daily had not posted anything on the birth certificate. On 2 Jul 2009, WND stated that there had been no response from the seller to WND's multiple attempts to make contact, except a written promise on the sixth auction description to meet with the news website. The sixth attempt attached to the birth certificate auction on Ebay was scrubbed and many were openly stating that it was a scam. The seller claimed on eBay that the birth certificate contains the name of Obama's mother and father, the name of the physician present, along with a signature, and that it is "an exact copy of the original 1961 Mombasa hospital birth certificate. Includes 2009 embossed seal of the hospital in Mombasa. Contains a 2009 signature from staff that issued this copy with embossed seal." It also allegedly included a "right footprint."

Ebay Birth Certificate Seller Resurfaces (Aug 2009) A man who had claimed to have a copy of President Obama's Kenyan birth certificate, attempted to sell it on eBay and then disappeared from contact has reappeared, this time with a video of the document he claims proves Obama's foreign birth. Lucas Smith, a former resident of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and known by the eBay handle "colmado_noranja," claimed online and in phone conversations with WND to have an authentic document from Coast Provincial Hospital in Mombasa proving Obama's birth there at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961. After promising to reveal the document to WND, Smith then dropped communications with a team of people offering to help him verify the document, only fueling belief the sale – and therefore the alleged document – was a scam.

VIDEO: Lucas Smith shows his birth certificate

In the video, Smith points to several features of the certificate, including information still unknown about the sitting president, such as the name of the attending physician at his birth – James O. W. Ang'awa according to Smith's video. The video also shows a stamp suggesting – if legitimate – that Smith obtained the document on Feb. 19, 2009. Smith, whose background includes a lengthy criminal record and a reported attempt to sell his kidney to a man in need of organ transplant, nonetheless insists that his motives are above board, even if his past looks dubious.


Screenshot of Lucasdocument

Dr. Jerome Corsi reported that WND obtained an authentic 1961-era Kenyan birth certificate, which does look distinctly different from the document Smith released in the video. (SEE BELOW) (Source: WND.) (SITE NOTE: We also note that the document shows a date of "8-7-1961" which seems strange. Obama's birthdate was Aug 4.)

Certificate is a Hoax ( The alleged Kenyan birth certificate offered by Lucas Smith and displayed last weekend on YouTube.com is not a valid document, a WND investigation has revealed. Administrators at Coast Provincial Hospital in Mombasa, the hospital named as President Obama supposed birth hospital in the document, have refused to authenticate the record when contacted by WND sources in Kenya. The document appears to have the following defects:

• Coast Province General Hospital did not exist in 1961.
• Until 1964, Kenya was the Dominion of Kenya, not the Republic of Kenya, and Mombasa was part of Zanzibar until December 12, 1963, not a coastal province of Kenya.
• Dr. James O.W. Ang'awa, the physician who was named in the document as the attending physician at President Obama's birth, was a physician who worked in Kenya during the 1960s; however he worked at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. Dr. James O.W. Ang'awa never worked at any hospital in Mombasa.
• The dates on the document are formatted in U.S. style, listing in order the month, date and year; this is not the British format which typically follows the order of date, month and year.
• The footprint on the document appears nearly perfect in definition; real infant footprints typically show signs of smudging because of foot movement. The footprint on the document is densely black, revealing few natural lines on the sole of the foot; footprints used for document identification are typically inked much lighter to allow for natural lines to be clearly apparent.
• Footprints taken for document identification are typically taken for both feet, just as fingerprints taken for identification are typically taken for both hands.
• The document does not look remotely like the 1961-era birth certificates used in Kenya; infant footprints were not displayed on Kenyan birth certificates in the 1961-era.

WND sources in Kenya described the Smith document as a clever forgery in that Helton Muganga is currently an administrator at Coast Provincial General Hospital. But when WND sources in Kenya contacted Coast Provincial General Hospital, no administrator would verify the authenticity of the Lucas Smith document displayed on YouTube.com.

Moreover, WND sources reported that it is unlikely any 1961 birth certificate for President Obama will ever be found at Coast Provincial Hospital in Mombasa, even if one originally existed. Administrators and doctors at Coast Provincial Hospital in Mombasa told WND sources that in 2004 a high-level team of Kenya's National Security Intelligence Service came to the hospital and seized all files containing birth certificate documents from the years 1960 through 1963. According to the hospital administrators and doctors interviewed at the hospital, it was not until four months later that Kenya's National Security Intelligence Service returned the seized files to the hospital. (Source: WND.)





Despite misgivings over the authenticity of Lucas Smith's document, on Sep 4, 2009, an Affidavit was filed with the United States District Court in Southern California ~ represented by Orly Taitz. This is a legal affidavit that declares Lucas Smith to be of sound mind and judgement. Lucas can go to jail if he lied on this affidavit. It should be noted that Lucas Smith has been in trouble with the law before on fraud scams so his credibility is questionable. The document still has NOT been validated for authenticity. (Source: American Grand Jury.)

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Fraudulent Hoax of Kenyan Birth Certificate (Jul 2009) An image of an apparently fraudulent Kenyan certificate of birth circulated on the Web today from an unknown source. It alleged Obama was born in Mombasa. But a contributor at FreeRepublic.com debunked it, declaring "Busted!" He pointed out that the background text, in Dutch, explained, in a rough translation, "This is not a government document. This is political commentary." (DIT IS GEEN GELDIG DOCUMENT VAN DE OVERHEID. DIT IS POLITIEKE COMMENTAAR. HIJ IS VOORZITTER VOOR MINSTENS DRIE EN EEN HALF VAN MEER JAREN. KEUR HET GOED. DIT ZAL NIET VERANDEREN.) (SITE NOTE: We cannot see this Dutch text in the photo above. We are not certain what he is referring to. However, the background is obviously wallpaper (wrinkled paper) with typing superimposed on it that does NOT follow the wrinkles -- making it a very amateurish copy.) (Source: WND.)


HOAX: FRAUDULENT Kenya Birth Certificate for Obama

Smoking Gun or Another Hoax? (Aug 2009) California attorney Orly Taitz, who has filed a number of lawsuits demanding proof of Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as president, has released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth and has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court for its authentication. (SITE NOTE: There was a large amount of skepticism over this document -- especially after the other hoax in late Jul 2009. The need for impartial verification or debunking of the document must be done before any judgement can be rendered. It seems to have appeared too conveniently when the Mainstream media is attempting to discredit the "birthers." The mistrust is that it is possibly a forgery planted by Obama supporters to make the "birther" movement appear ridiculous. As of early August, most agreed that the Kenyan birth document was probably NOT authentic, though officials in Nairobi did not rule out the possibility President Obama may indeed have been born in their country.)



The document listed Obama's parents as Barack Hussein Obama and Stanley Ann Obama, formerly Stanley Ann Dunham, the birth date as Aug. 4, 1961, and the hospital of birth as Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya.



No doctor is listed. But the alleged certificate bears the signature of the deputy registrar of Coast Province, Joshua Simon Oduya. It was allegedly issued as a certified copy of the original in February 1964. At first, WND stated that it was able to obtain other birth certificates from Kenya for purposes of comparison, and the form of the documents appeared to be identical. However, it later changed its story as birth documents were NOT identical.

>

Taitz told WND that the document came from an anonymous source who doesn't want his name known because "he's afraid for his life." Taitz's motion, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, requests the purported evidence of Obama's birth – both the alleged birth certificate and foreign records not yet obtained – be preserved from destruction, asks for permission to legally request documents from Kenya and seeks a subpoena for deposition from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (Later it was revealed that the source was Ed Hale of internet Plains Radio.)

"I filed the motion with the court asking for expedited discovery, which would allow me to start subpoenas and depositions even before Obama and the government responds," Taitz told WND. "I am asking the judge to give me the power to subpoena the documents from the Kenyan embassy and to require a deposition from Hillary Clinton so they will be forced to authenticate [the birth certificate].

"I'm forcing the issue, where Obama will have to respond," she said.

"Before, they said, 'You don't have anything backing your claims,'" Taitz explained. "Now I have something. In fact, I have posted on the Internet more than Obama has. My birth certificate actually has signatures." (Source: WND.) On 6 Aug, .S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Nakazato today threw out a document that was purportedly a copy of President Barack Obama’s registration of birth in Kenya. Nakazato’s action also dismissed a request that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have the Kenyan government verify the document. But Nakazato said the document was improperly filed, leaving the door open for it to be filed again. (Source: and Sentinel Radio.)

Rumors and counter-rumors were running wild in the first week of August 2009. It now appears that there is a second document; this one with a tear. According to Free Republic (The second one, with the “tear” was a poorly-processed picture done by a Freeper called Salamander.) Where did the tear come from? Ed: Note, it seems that while removing the background, it may have ‘leaked’ onto the document. (Source: Native Born Citizen.)

Ed Hale of Plains Radio, an internet talk show, apparently admitted that he had the document in his possession since September 2008 but he did not release it until recently through Orly while initially trying to get rid of it via the eBay ruse. He got it through someone by the name of “Shirley” who paid $1000 to get the document (which is weird given that it is a 1964 document). (Source: Native Born Citizen.) (SITE NOTE: Ed Hale is an Internet Plains Radio host of some repute that has hyped Obama documents in order to boost his listener ratings. The Obama divorce documents are an example of his hype.)

Dr. Ron Polarik, who stated the Obama COLB was a forgery, has called the Kenya birth certificate a forgery. "I am amazed at the cluelessness of many people in this forum about the above obvious fake document. For instance: Kenya didn’t become a republic until December 1964; E.F Lavender is a common detergent in Kenya & the certificate# 44 0 47 is laughable: 44 = he’s the 44th US President, O = Obama & 47 = his age. Are all these coincidental you lunatics…." (Source: Native Born Citizen.)

High points:

• - The document lists Mombasa as part of Kenya. Mombasa did not become part of Kenya until 1963. It used to be part of Zanzibar.
• -Why would a predominantly Muslim nation actually say "Christian name" (as opposed to name) on the birth certificate?
• - The forger incorrectly calculated Obama's fathers age.
• - The hospital was in an area called the "Central Nyanza District," not Nyanza Province. The regions were changed to provinces in 1970.
• -The document is dated 5 August 1964 -- a Saturday. From what I can find, Kenyan guvmint offices close early on Friday and are closed on Saturdays. Oooops
• - This piece of paper certainly looks nice and new to be 45 years old -- unless the Kenyans were using acid-free paper back in 1964
• - The hospital is called Coast Provincial General Hospital (sometimes said to be Coast Province General Hospital), not Coast General Hospital.
• - Finally, Officials of Coast Province General Hospital reported: “We do not have computerized records going back to the 1960’s and can only sort through our archives by hand,” Dr. Christopher Mwanga, an administrator at the Mombasa hospital tells GLOBE. “We have searched for all the names of babies born on Aug. 4, 1961, and have not found the name of Barack Hussein Obama.

(Source: Knox Views.))

Among the criticisms and the responses linked on the Taitz site:

• Document is dated Feb. 14, 1964 and includes "Republic of Kenya," even though that designation wasn't official until months later. Response: It would be common for a state after recently declaring it's independence to act independently rather than continue under the old rule.
• The number 44-O-47 is coincidental as President Obama is the 44th president, and was 47 years old. Response: The number is 44,047, with a "zero," not an "O."
• The name E.F. (Earth Friendly) Lavender is a soap. Response: Also the name of a plant. Lavendar also is a SURNAME! (SITE NOTE: It has been proven that an E.F. Lavendar was an actual attorney in AUSTRALIA, but not shown if he was connected to this document.)
• Coast General Hospital actually is Coast Provincial General Hospital. Response: People abbreviate. It's not proof of anything.
• Obama's father, born in 1936, would have been 24 or 25, not 26. Response: Obama Sr.'s actual birthdate isn't known.
• Would a nation with a large number of Muslims say "Christian" name? Response: Wikipedia reports, "The term Christian name is often used as a general synonym for given name."
• Obama's father's village would be nearer Nairobi, not Mombasa. Response: Mombasa would have better facilities than Nairobi where Obama Sr. probably had few ties. (Source: and WND.)

The document was alleged to be made from a template of an Australian birth certificate copy. According to Democratic Underground, "It was a scanned image of a "Certified Copy of Registration of Birth" dated in 1964 for a David Jeffrey Bomford on a genealogy website for the Bomford family. Except that David Jeffrey Bomford wasn't born in Kenya, he was born in South Australia. But what was even more interesting was certain other features of the document as compared to the Kenya certificate." The names of the registrar and the district registrar were the SAME NAMES as given in the Kenya certificate save for the first initials, i.e. G.H. Lavender and J.H. Miller in the Bomford document versus E.H. Lavender and M.H. Miller in the Kenya document. Also, the book number (44B) and page number (5733) were the exactly the same on both documents. The image of the Bomford certificate seems to prove beyond any doubt that not only is the Kenya certificate a fake, but that whomever faked it used the Bomford certificate as the template.

(SITE NOTE: This contradicted the World Net Daily's earlier statement that supposedly received documents from Kenya of the same year that appeared identical. WND later retracted its comment. This also makes Ed Hale a conspirator in the forgery if reports are true that Ed Hale gave the photo of the document to Orly Taitz. Cursory look shows the seals are different and the angle of the creases are two different pieces of paper at the bottom, but the name similarities make it appear to be a fake. However, anything is possible and expert analysis is required. There was a massive movement in progress to discredit Orly Taitz, the "birther movement" and anyone questioning Obama's credentials in general.)




Example of Kenyan birth certificate from 1961 shows distinct differences (WND)

The verified 1961-era Kenyan birth certificate is described at the top as a "Government of Kenya" document. It includes: Where Born; Name or names; Sex; Father's occupation and rank; Father's nationality; Name and maiden name for mother; Mother's Occupation; Mother's nationality; Signature, description and residence of information; Date of birth; Date of registration; Baptismal name if added or altered after registration of birth; Reference to register. According to the WND, Kenyan government officials interviewed by WND sources in Kenya have pointed out a key difference in the Taitz document. In 1961, Mombasa was a part of Zanzibar, not the Coast Province of Kenya. The area was later ceded to Kenya. Moreover, the African nation was the Dominion of Kenya until December 1964, after declaring independence in 1961. Kenya was not officially the Republic of Kenya until some 10 months after the Feb. 17, 1964, date on which the Taitz document purportedly was certified. (Source: WND.)

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Is Obama Still a BRITISH Citizen?

"YES" --according to the reasoning of eligibility advocates Leo Donofrio and Mario Apuzo.

This is a relatively new theory in 2009 based upon the fact of Obama's Dual Citizenship at birth as a U.S. and BRITISH citizen -- that was converted to Kenyan dual citizenship in 1963. In 1963, Obama received Kenyan dual citizenship upon Kenya gaining its independence from Britain. Obama asserts that his British citizenship lapsed at that time. This is NOT true as a Kenyan dual-citizen, he also retained British COMMONWEALTH citizenship -- which is defined as equivalent to British citizenship. Section 95(1) of the Kenyan Constitution states: "95. (1) Every person who, under this Constitution or an Act of Parliament, is a citizen of Kenya… shall, by virtue of that citizenship, have the status of a Commonwealth citizen." Under Kenyan Independence Act of 1963 (KIA) in Section 2(1), it states: "2.-(1) On and after the appointed day, the British NationalityActs 1948 and 1958 shall have effect as if-(a) in section 1(3) of the said Act of 1948 (which provides for persons to be British subjects or Commonwealth citizens by virtue of citizenship of certain countries) there were added at the end the words ” and Kenya ”;" Thus Obama was both Kenyan, by virtue of his father's citizenship, AND a British Commonwealth citizen. (SITE NOTE: By definition, a British Commonwealth Citizenship is equal to British citizenship with the Queen as the ceremonial head of the Commonwealth.)

According to Obama's own admission, he allowed his Kenyan dual citizenship to lapse at age 21. However, Leo Donofrio, who brought the original eligibility suit, and Mario Apuzzo, the attorney for the case Kerchner vs Obama, argue that the British citizenship at birth did NOT lapse at age 21. Instead the Kenyan dual citizenship lapsed when Obama was 23 in 1984 because the Kenya Nationality Act granted a two-year grace period. The year "1983" is significant as Obama would have received British Commonwealth citizenship automatically under the British Nationality Act of 1981 that took effect in 1983. If the Kenyan dual citizenship automatically lapsed in 1982 (age 21) as Obama states, Obama would NOT have been automatically granted British Commonwealth citizenship -- and it along with the Kenyan citizenship would have lapsed. Donofrio and Apuzo argue that he DOES have Commonwealth citizenship because his Kenyan dual citizenship did NOT lapse until 1984 (age 23). (SITE NOTE: Under the British Nationality Act of 1948, the terms "British citizen" and "Commonwealth citizen" are synonymous.)

Because Obama was still a Kenyan dual citizen in 1983, he fell under the British Nationality Act of 1961 (BNA) that took effect in 1963. Under the BNA Obama was automatically granted British COMMONWEALTH citizenship by virtue of his still being a Kenyan dual citizen at age 22 (1983). At age 23 (1984) Obama's Kenyan dual citizenship lapsed, but his British Commonwealth citizenship did NOT expire. Unlike the Kenyan dual citizenship which lapsed automatically when Obama was 23, the Commonwealth citizenship must be renounced OFFICIALLY IN WRITING. Thus Obama still retains his British Commonwealth citizenship.

The following is a rather lengthy explanation of why the year "1983" becomes significant. Obama supporters would have one believe that Obama's Kenyan dual citizenship was allowed to expire at age 21, but in fact the Kenyan Citizenship Act allows the person to decide before age 23. Assuming that Obama did nothing to avow or disavow his Kenyan citizenship, he remained a Kenyan dual citizen until age 23 -- August 4, 1984. (SEE Is Obama Currently a KENYAN Citizen?.) Thus Obama was STILL a Kenyan citizen in 1983 when the British Nationality Act of 1981 that took effect in 1983. Under this act, Obama was granted citizenship under the Commonwealth. The significance is that British Commonwealth citizenship did NOT lapse and though Obama is no longer a Kenyan citizen, in 1983 WITHOUT ANY ACTION ON HIS PART he became a British Commonwealth citizen. Proponents of this theory state that British citizenship is different from others in that it does NOT lapse and Obama remains a dual citizen today -- British and American. Mr. Donofrio added the following:

So, according to the Kenyan Constitution, the earliest date Obama’s Kenyan citizenship could have expired is August 4, 1984. Factcheck.org was absolutely wrong when they reported Obama’s Kenyan citizenship expired on August 4, 1982.

This is not just an issue of numerical semantics. Whether Obama was a Kenyan citizen on January 1, 1983 has important relevance to Obama’s status in the United Kingdom and to Commonwealth Citizenship in the Commonwealth of Nations (formerly known as the British Commonwealth). On January 1, 1983, the British Nationality Act of 1981 went into effect. Section 37 of the BNA 1981 makes all citizens of commonwealth nations, who had been British Subjects before commencement of the BNA 1981, to thereafter “have the status of a Commonwealth Citizen“.

Section 50 of the BNA 1981 also states that Commonwealth Citizens are not aliens of the United Kingdom.

So, since Obama was a citizen of Kenya on January 1, 1983, he was also a Commonwealth Citizen and he was not an alien in the United Kingdom from that date. Had Obama’s citizenship expired on August 4, 1982 - as was incorrectly stated by Factcheck.org – then the British Nationality Act of 1981 (which didn’t go into effect until January 1, 1983) would not have governed Obama’s status.

The term “Commonwealth Citizen” – since the BNA 1981 – has effectively replaced the former title of “British Subject”. Up until the BNA 1981, both terms were synonymous and held synonymous rights and obligations.

It’s important to note that Section 35 of the BNA 1981 states:

s 35 Circumstances in which British subjects are to lose that status.

A person who under this Act is a British subject otherwise than by virtue of section 31 shall cease to be such a subject if, in whatever circumstances and whether under this Act or otherwise, he acquires any other citizenship or nationality whatever.

I’ve seen some very mistaken analysis of this section. Let me set the record straight: Even full British citizens ceased to be “British subjects” when the BNA 1981 went into effect.

The British government is doing away with the term, “British Subject”. From January 1, 1983 and onwards, persons who were previously British subjects and citizens of the UK (or of any Commonwealth nation) are now “Commonwealth Citizens” of the Commonwealth of Nations. “Commonwealth Citizen” has replaced “British Subject”.

If you were a British Subject before the BNA 1981, you are now (with very limited exceptions) a Commonwealth Citizen. It’s important to note however, that prior to January 1, 1983, the term British Subject was still in effect and had effective legal implications. We will return to this later.

Wiki says this about the Commonwealth leadership:

“Under the formula of the London Declaration, Queen Elizabeth II is the Head of the Commonwealth, a title that is currently annexed to that of British monarchy.“

Commonwealth citizens have the following rights :

In the United Kingdom, as in many other Commonwealth countries, Commonwealth citizens… are in law considered not to be “foreign” or “aliens”… Commonwealth and Irish citizens enjoy the same civic rights as British citizens, namely:

• the right, unless otherwise disqualified, to vote in all elections (i.e., parliamentary, local and European [1] elections);
  
  
• the right, unless otherwise disqualified, to stand for election to the British House of Commons;
  
  
• the right, if a qualifying peer or bishop, to sit in the House of Lords; and
  
  eligibility to hold public office (e.g., as a judge, magistrate, minister, police constable, member of the armed forces, etc.).

So, as you can see from all of the above, the date which Obama may have lost his Kenyan citizenship creates a whole set of complex international law issues which have yet to be resolved.

The facts are important and do need to be checked and reported accurately. If you are going about the world doing business under the name “Factcheck.org”, you should be held to a high standard of integrity and thoroughness, especially when reporting facts which intended to influence the national election of the United States.

The irony is that Factcheck.org was allegedly correcting The Rocky Mountain News story which stated that Obama was currently a dual citizen of Kenya. Suffice it to say, I am not impressed with Factcheck’s fact checking abilities. We shall see if they have the humility to correct their mistake.

Because of various statutory exceptions regarding the declarations mentioned in Section 97 of the Kenyan Constitution, the original report by the Rocky Mountain News – stating that Obama was a dual citizen of Kenya and the US – might have been accurate. Information not currently in the public domain is necessary to answer this question as well as the question of whether Obama is currently a British citizen. (SITE NOTE: This appears to be a caveat that the assertion might have other unknown quirks in the law that prove this assertion that Obama STILL retains British Commonwealth citizenship false.)

This documented false reporting by Factcheck.org coupled with the analysis below strips them of any previously assumed penchant for accuracy and objectivity.

Factcheck.org either dropped the ball on this one, or they reported the facts wrong on purpose as part of a propaganda package of deceit for the purpose of getting Obama elected. It’s one thing to say that the public was aware of Obama’s foreign national issues – IF – the facts are reported accurately to the American people.

Since Obama quoted Factcheck.org and provided a link back to the site, it is important now that every single assertion Factcheck.org made be closely scrutinized. I am in the process of doing a complete review of Kenyan and British nationality law.

Factcheck.org – Inaccuracy #2: While Obama’s status as a British citizen may have been short lived, Factcheck.org failed to state that his status as a British subject was not short lived.

Obama remained a British subject from his birth and after the Kenya Independence Act went into effect in 1963, all the way up until that status changed to Commonwealth Citizen in the BNA 1981.

Here’s what Factcheck.org reported:

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…

Obama’s British citizenship was short-lived. On Dec. 12, 1963, Kenya formally gained its independence from the United Kingdom.

Obama only republished the first paragraph above, not the second which stated that his British citizenship was short-lived.

Please notice that Factcheck.org mentions Obama’s British citizenshipand his status as a British subject. But when they conclude that Obama’s British citizenship was short-lived, they say nothing about his status as a British subject continuing, which it certainly did.

The report is not accurate as to Obama’s historical British Subject status in that the report implicates his British subject status was lost along with British citizenship back in 1963. It was not.

The proof that Obama remained a British subject after 1963 exists in the Kenyan Independence Act of 1963 (KIA) which states in Section 2(1):

2.-(1) On and after the appointed day, the British NationalityActs 1948 and 1958 shall have effect as if-

(a) in section 1(3) of the said Act of 1948 (which provides for persons to be British subjects or Commonwealth citizens by virtue of citizenship of certain countries) there were added at the end the words ” and Kenya ” ;

Now we must look at the British Nationality Act of 1948, Section 1:

1.—(1) Every person who under this Act is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies or who under any enactment for the time being in force in any country mentioned in subsection (3) of this section is a citizen of that country shall by virtue of that citizenship have the status of a British subject.

(2) Any person having the status aforesaid may be known either as a British subject or as a Commonwealth citizen; and accordingly in this Act and in any other enactment or instrument whatever, whether passed or made before or after the commencement of this Act, the expression “British subject” and the expression “Commonwealth citizen” shall have the same meaning.

(3) The following are the countries hereinbefore referred to, that is to say, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Newfoundland, India, Pakistan, Southern Rhodesia and Ceylon.

According to the KIA, the words “and Kenya” are added to subsection (3) making all Kenyan citizens also British Subjects upon “the appointed day”, December 12, 1963.

It has now been conclusively established that President Obama could not have lost his Kenyan Citizenship on August 4, 1982. This means his foreign nationality issues were not only governed by the Kenyan Constitution, but – as of January 1, 1983 – he was also governed by the British Nationality Act of 1981.

My research has discovered multiple legal mechanisms which have the potential to establish that President Obama is now a full citizen of Kenya as well as the United Kingdom, the European Union, the Commonwealth of Nations and the Republic of Indonesia. Unfortunately, information available in the public domain cannot answer these questions.

The American people, despite what they have been told by factions such as the unreliable Factcheck.org, continue to remain in the dark as to whether their President holds any foreign citizenships or nationalities at this time.

Obama, as President of the United States, is also the Executive head of the State Department. Please review the following current policy of the Obama administration as to dual nationality:

The U.S. Government recognizes that dual nationality exists but does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause. Claims of other countries on dual national U.S. citizens may conflict with U.S. law, and dual nationality may limit U.S. Government efforts to assist citizens abroad. The country where a dual national is located generally has a stronger claim to that person’s allegiance. However, dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are required to obey the laws of both countries. Either country has the right to enforce its laws, particularly if the person later travels there.(Emphasis added.)

The Obama administration policy is that dual nationals owe allegiance to the foreign country as well as the US. The law applies to the President. If he is a dual national, he owes allegiance to “foreign powers“.

THE SOLUTION

Whether President Obama currently holds the status of dual (or multi) national remains of paramount concern to the national security and the national sovereignty of the United States. But unlike the issue of whether Obama is eligible to be President, the issue of whether he is currently a foreign national of any other nations can be resolved very easily.

All President Obama has to do is officially renounce citizenship in all foreign nations and supranational organizations. This will remove any unwanted and possibly unknown lingering attachments to foreign nations which may exist at this time.

I have read many arguments alleging that foreign law should not effect US law. While the issue is not that simple – as Obama’s own State department agrees - the solution is.

President Obama, for the good of the nation, needs to officially renounce all foreign national ties. Each nation to which he was attached has a legal mechanism by which he can permanently sever citizenship and/or nationality.

It’s time for the nation to call on the President to officially and legally renounce all foreign allegiance. And it’s time for the President to respond.

On early Tuesday morning, January 20, 2009, at about 3:00 a.m., I filed a Complaint for Emergency Injunction, Declaratory Relief, Mandamus, and Petition for Quo Warranto on behalf of my clients, Mr. Kerchner, Mr. Patterson, Mr. LeNormand, and Mr. Nelsen, against defendants, Barack Hussein Obama II, United States of America, United States Congress, United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, Richard B. Cheney, and Nancy Pelosi. I filed the complaint in the Federal District Court of New Jersey and is now pending in Camden. It bears Civil Action No. 1:09-cv-00253. The complaint seeks to learn the truth about whether Obama is an Article II "natural born Citizen" and eligible to be President and Commander in Chief. On January 21, 2009, I filed an Amended Complaint for Emergency Injunction, Declaratory Relief, Mandamus, and Petition for Quo Warranto. The Complaint and the Amended Complaint can be accessed and viewed at the District Court of New Jersey and Pacer web site. I will also be uploading a copy of the documents at this blog site as soon as possible so that they may be more easily viewed.

The defendants have not yet been served. I am now in the process of requesting that the Court issue to me the summonses so that I can then serve as soon as possible the Summons and Amended Complaint on the defendants.

As you know, the courts have refused to reach the underlying merits of the many lawsuits that have been filed on the question of whether Mr. Obama is an Article II "natural born Citizen" and eligible to be President and Commander in Chief. My clients and I hope that we will get a court to reach the underlying merits of this question so that the American people will be assured that Mr. Obama is their legitimate President and not an usurper. I will appreciate whatever comments anyone has on the merits of this lawsuit.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. (SITE NOTE: Quo Warranto (Medieval Latin for "by what warrant?") is one of the prerogative writs, that requires the person to whom it is directed to show what authority he has for exercising some right or power (or "franchise") he claims to hold. ... In the United States today, Quo Warranto usually arises in a civil case as a plaintiff's claim (and thus a "cause of action" instead of a writ) that some governmental or corporate official was not validly elected to that office or is wrongfully exercising powers beyond (or ultra vires) those authorized by statute or by the corporation's charter. (Source: Wikipedia.)

…The British Nationality Act of 1948 provides in pertinent part as follows:

"4. Subject to the provisions of this section, every person born within the United Kingdom and Colonies after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by birth:

Provided that a person shall not be such a citizen by virtue of this section if at the time of his birth—

(a) his father possesses such immunity from suit and legal process as is accorded to an envoy of a foreign sovereign power accredited to His Majesty, and is not a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies; or

(b) his father is an enemy alien and the birth occurs in a place then under occupation by the enemy.

5.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, a person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent if his father is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of the birth …."

Under the British Nationality Act of 1948, Obama's father became a British citizen under Section 4 by being born on the soil of an English Colony, Kenya. Under Section 5, when Obama was born in 1961 in Hawaii or some other place, he automatically became a British citizen by descent from his father who was a British citizen under Section 4.

Obama has deflected attention to his British citizenship by focusing the public's attention on his former Kenyan citizenship. Notwithstanding what Obama may lead the public to believe, this British citizenship is not a type of citizenship that he has since lost. Moreover, this citizenship did not expire with Obama's 21st birthday nor is it one that had to be registered in any specified period of time.

Chapter VI, Section 87 of the Kenyan Constitution specifies that:

"1. Every person who, having been born in Kenya, is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies or a British protected person shall become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December, 1963…2. Every person who, having been born outside Kenya. [sic] is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies or a British protected person shall. [sic] if his father becomes. [sic] . . . a citizen of Kenya by virtue of subjection (1). [sic] become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December. [sic] 1963."

Under the Kenyan Constitution of 1963, Obama's father and Obama became citizens of Kenya. But neither Kenya's independence from Great Britain, nor the Kenyan Constitution, nor the Kenyan Independence Act of 1963, as amended, caused Obama to lose his British citizenship with which he was born. Obama concedes that his citizenship converted from British to Kenyan but he adds that he then lost this Kenyan citizenship when he did not confirm it upon reaching the age of 21. There are no known statements from either Obama or his campaign contending that he eventually lost his British citizenship. Rather, the statements have been that his British citizenship converted to Kenyan citizenship when Kenya obtained its independence from Great Britain in 1963 and that he then lost Kenyan citizenship under the Kenyan constitution and laws when he did not renounce U.S. citizenship at age 21. But since Obama never lost his British citizenship, it does not matter that Obama may have lost his Kenyan citizenship as he contends. Let us now see how Obama did not lose his British citizenship. The Kenyan Constitution which came into effect in 1963 at Article 97 provides the following:

"97. Dual citizenship

1. A person who, upon the attainment of the age of twenty-one years, is a citizen of Kenya and also a citizen of some country other than Kenya shall, subject to subsection (7), cease to be a citizen of Kenya upon the specified date unless he has renounced his citizenship of that other country, taken the oath of allegiance and, in the case of a person who was born outside Kenya made and registered such declaration of his intentions concerning residence as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament."

While the Kenyan Constitution prohibits dual citizenship for adults, it allows dual citizenship for children. Kenya's Constitution does, however, specify that at age 21, Kenyan citizens who possess citizenship in more than one country automatically lose their Kenyan citizenship unless they formally renounce any non-Kenyan citizenship, swear an oath of allegiance to Kenya, and in the case of a person who was born outside Kenya made and registered such declaration of his intentions concerning residence as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament. It may be true that Obama did not take any action to preserve his Kenyan citizenship as was required by the Kenyan constitution. But there is no evidence that Obama ever renounced his British citizenship which he originally acquired at his birth under Section 5 of the British Nationality Act of 1948 and which he did not lose under the Kenyan Independence Act of 1963, as amended. Whatever his father may have done regarding his Kenyan and/or British citizenship did not affect Obama's British citizenship with which Obama was born. Hence, under the Kenyan Constitution, Obama presumably lost his Kenyan citizenship by not renouncing his U.S. (assuming he was born in the U.S.) and British citizenships, by not taking an oath of allegiance to Kenya, and by not registering his declaration to take up residence in Kenya. But under British law, he did not lose his British citizenship because he never renounced that citizenship.

The fact that Obama still has British citizenship is further supported by the following:

"Under United Kingdom law as it has been since the British Nationality Act, 1948, the acquisition of another nationality by a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, of whatever age, makes no difference whatever to his status as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, and, therefore, he remains a British subject.

Moreover, it is not possible, under United Kingdom law, for the nationality of a child who is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies to be changed by the decision of his parents. Only the child, when he reaches the age of 21, can renounce his citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies if he is then in possession of another nationality, but during the child's minority neither the child nor his parents can do anything to forfeit his birthright of British nationality."

Children Bill [Lords], HC Deb 27 June 1958 vol 590 cc743-830.

"It is now the law that all persons born in the United Kingdom or its Colonies, or in countries which were Colonies at the time when they were born, have British nationality whether they are legitimate or illegitimate. . . .

Also, it is part of our law that children of a British male born abroad can have British nationality."

British Nationality, HC Deb 16 July 1963 vol 681 cc341-3.

Additionally, if one examines the British Nationality Act of 1981, as amended, there is nothing there which shows that Obama, once having the British citizenship that he acquired by descent from his father at the time of his birth, automatically lost it at age 21. On the other hand, the act contains provisions concerning "declaration of renunciation" at Section 10, 12, and 13. Not that doing so would make Obama an Article II "natural born Citizen,"there is no evidence that Obama ever filed any "declaration of renunciation" of his British citizenship.

What does this mean? Under the Kenyan Constitution, Obama is presumably no longer a Kenyan citizen because he did not renounce at age 21 his British citizenship and his U.S. citizenship (assuming he was born in the U.S.). Obama is still however a British citizen not only under English common law (in the words of Coke and Blackstone, a natural-born subject of the United Kingdom) but also under British citizenship statutes. Neither Kenya's 1963 constitution nor any statute erased the consequences of the British common law and nationality statutes that were in effect at the time of Obama's and his father's birth. Obama's continuing British citizenship is further confirmed by English law which provides that persons born in countries which were Colonies at the time when they were born are still British citizens. Hence, Obama continues to be a British citizen despite Kenya's independence and new constitution.

I really have to admit — after having read Mr. Apuzzo's article once more, I am becoming convinced that Mr. Obama really could still be a British citizen. The question is whether or not Mr. Obama, at or after becoming a legal adult, specifically renounced his Kenyan, British or US citizenship. According to the above, Mr. Obama's British citizenship would not have automagically waned into non-existence unless he would have specifically denounced it. And there we have the other crux of the argument.

What do I mean?

While it may be true that if the public will ever be able to investigate Mr. Obama's background documentation, including his long-form birth certificate (or whatever "vital records" are on file in the great State of Hawaii), it may actually show his being physically born in the State, the truth of the matter is that it's also very likely that he maintains his British citizenship — the one "hidden-in-plain-sight" disqualifier for Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the American Constitution.

So, to me, it appears that Mr. Obama was not only born a British citizen, but may continue to be a Subject of Her Majesty the Queen to this day. (Source: Right Side of Life.)

Media Blackout on Obama eligibility dates back to November (2008)

Do you remember Watergate? Thirty-five years ago this Sunday, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon submitted his letter of resignation for his role in the scandal. There was the crime – the break-in, and then there was the cover-up by the Nixon administration. There were threats, media manipulation and disinformation. It was the cover-up more than the crime itself in the aftermath of the Watergate break-in that led to the downfall of the Nixon administration. It was a politically critical time for our country, but we survived because of the strength of the U.S. constitution.

Now, we potentially face a new constitutional crisis stemming from the refusal of Barack Hussein Obama to produce a one-page document that would confirm his eligibility to hold the highest office in the land. Eligibility to hold office is not a “fringe” matter, but a core constitutional issue that lies at the very heart of a growing controversy.

Although we do not have the birth certificate or proof of ineligibility, the Northeast Intelligence Network and Canada Free Press have documentation of a cover-up relating to the issue of Obama’s eligibility to hold office. The proof we possess not only exposes a well orchestrated cover-up, but also provides critical insight into why the topic of Obama’s eligibility has failed to gain traction in the corporate media.

The Northeast Intelligence Network and Canada Free Press are in possession of extremely sensitive investigative documents, including a stunning written admission by a nationally known talk show host stating that he was threatened with his career – or worse - should he talk about the issue of Barack Hussein Obama’s birth records to a national audience. This document was obtained on December 10, 2008, and provides explicit detail of a “gag order” imposed on this host before and immediately following the national election last November.

After receiving and authenticating the document, US based veteran private investigator Douglas J. Hagmann opened a full scale investigation into the media blackout, with specific emphasis on tracing the blackout origins to those issuing them. This investigation was conducted in conjunction with Judi McLeod, founding editor of Canada Free Press and Brian Thompson, CFP Information Technology chief following a meeting near Toronto, Ontario last December. At that meeting, it was decided to keep the existence of the document secret until additional evidence could be obtained.

Today, after an extensive eight month investigation, the Northeast Intelligence Network and Canada Free Press are breaking their silence and revealing explosive information about a widespread cover-up that began at the earliest stages of the Obama presidential campaign. The cover-up traces back to some of the most powerful and influential people in the U.S. and continues today.

Summary of the Evidence

As noted above, we are in possession of a written account by a well known national talk show host who details how he was prohibited to discuss the controversy of Barack Hussein Obama’s eligibility as president of the United States. This signed document cites exact dates and times when he was forbidden to discuss any aspect of the birth certificate controversy, and includes direct references to the individuals responsible for such prohibitions. Further, his statement identifies the individuals who originated the orders and their positions, and confirms that failure to adhere to the order would likely end his career in that industry. He also confirms that other, less specific but more menacing threats were implied during conversations with those making the subject off limits.

Although we possess the original document containing the name and contact information of the talk show host, we have decided not to publish his name or network affiliation at this time. Based on the correspondence from this individual and respecting the nature of the threats to him personally and professionally, it is our decision to allow him to enjoy anonymity until such time as he decides to reveal the facts himself at a time of his choosing.

From multiple interviews conducted within the last eight months, we have obtained information from other sources, independent of the above, who have also been instructed to avoid any discussion of the birth certificate issue at all costs, to wit:

The account of an administrative assistant employed in New York City by a cable network news station who provided significant, detailed information of a 2008 meeting between the top network executive and four-(4) well-known news anchors. This source confirmed that she drafted the memo to the various hosts to notify them of the date, time and location of this high-level meeting at the request of the network’s top executive.

Present at this meeting, she verified that the network official issued “warnings” to the personalities “to avoid any on-air discussion of the birth place, eligibility, and news accounts of litigation compelling [Barack Hussein] Obama to produce a legitimate copy of his birth certificate.” She stated that the network executive had her arrange the conference immediately following a meeting “between [the network executive] and an attorney closely associated with candidate Obama who was acting on his behalf.”

The statement of a corporate secretary for a major news network confirming the existence of a one-page inter-office memo, bearing the markings “confidential” and “not for dissemination,” addressed and distributed to news anchors and on-air talent” that specifically instructed the recipients to avoid any discussion pertaining to the Obama birth certificate controversy. The memo was written and distributed in October 2008, and specifically instructed on-air talent to “advise guests, as necessary, to refrain from citing any news story, legal proceedings, Internet ‘blogs’ or other sources that pertain to the ongoing eligibility controversy of future President Barack Obama.”

As outlined above, our Investigation has uncovered both direct and indirect evidence of threats being made against some of the nation’s top radio and television personalities, which would explain some giving this topic mere lip service. As one source interviewed during the course of this investigation stated, “I’ve got a career and family to think about.”

Although no one should be surprised over the manipulation of the news, the nature of this manipulation, and the extent of the threats against journalists, should shock even the most well grounded.

Any reasonable person must question the motivation of the media moguls. The individuals who have – and continue to threaten talk show hosts, news anchors, and others are the top people. We are not talking about mid or upper level management – this is from the very top in all cases. If there is nothing to the birth certificate issue and the question of eligibility, why the secrecy? (Source: Canada Free Press: Douglas Hagmann & Judi McLeod.)

Who is behind quashing the birth certificate issue?

Back in October of 2008, when the subject of Obama's constitutional eligibility to be president of the United States was just a blip on the radar screen of public awareness, I wrote an article about how easy it was to find my then- 92-year-old mother's birth certificate.

Frankly, I didn't think finding my mother's birth certificate was possible, given the fact that she had been born in a farmhouse in Storrs, CT, along with nine of her 10 siblings, to parents who didn't speak English. Despairing that she would never be "qualified" to receive the care [in a nursing home] that she desperately needed, I set about to find the document, which I was sure had vanished in the unreliable record-keeping of 1913. When I called the third number, I explained to the woman who answered the phone that I was "asking something impossible." I gave her my mother's first name and her father's last name. Within four minutes, she said, "Here it is!" When I expressed my amazement, the woman said: "That's nothing...we're routinely asked to find birth certificates from the 1800s, and we do that all the time!" Total time it took me to find my mother's 1913, born-in-a-farmhouse birth certificate: 10 minutes!

Obama was born not in 1913, like my mother, but in 1961 — or perhaps in 1957, according to his MySpace page, which would make him 52, born supposedly in Hawaii before it became a state in 1959. So it was quite curious that not one cyber-sleuth could find an authentic, verifiable copy of his original vault-copy birth certificate. I'm not talking about the faux version Obama posted on his website, which was deemed the real thing by FactCheck.org, a "truth"-detecting site that is sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation, the same foundation that hired Obama and his terrorist pal William Ayers and gave them millions of dollars for a research project in Chicago. In other words, the least credible source!

Even more significant is that no one in the media thought Obama's missing birth certificate worth even casual mention. Their thinking seemed to be: We're not going to check on his eligibility to be president, if we don't even question why other crucial documents were — and continue to be — sealed? For instance: his baptism certificate; elementary, high school, college and graduate school transcripts; visa(s); selective service record; alleged multiple Social Security numbers; Illinois attorney's license; Illinois State Senate records; law practice client list; Univ. of Chicago scholarly articles; financial records while a community organizer in Chicago; and medical records. I'm also curious about why Michelle Obama's law license was suspended in 1993 by the Illinois Supreme Court, but then again she wasn't running for president.

Instead, the media were frantically busy trying to divert public attention away from those pesky things known as credentials with gossip-driven tabloid reportage of Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber in order to avoid the bigger-than-Watergate potential scandal of whether or not Obama was eligible — according to the U.S. Constitution — to become President of the United States!

NOW WE KNOW WHY

In an explosive interview by Dr. Laurie Roth on her syndicated West Coast radio show on August 7th with Douglas Hagmann — a respected journalist, director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, and longtime private investigator, and Judi McLeod, a prolific journalist and the managing editor of Canada Free Press — the reason for the media blackout about the birth-certificate issue was nothing less than organized Mafia-like dire threats to members of the media issued not only from the heads of major TV and radio stations but also from Federal Communication Commission officials!

According to Hagmann and McLeod, who conducted a nine-month investigation and documented their findings scrupulously, after Obama was elected but before he was inaugurated:

• A major TV talk-show host reported that he was ordered not to raise the birth certificate issue or risk losing his job.
• FCC officials threatened to yank broadcasting licenses, break up conglomerates, and make the enactment of the Fairness Doctrine "look mild" in comparison to other consequences.
• In at least one corporate TV headquarters, memos were circulated to all on-air employees not to mention the birth certificate issue, as well as other specific subjects like Obama's Illinois lawyer's license, his college records, etc., under both implied and explicit threats.

During the interview, Hagmann and McLeod — who never mentioned a particular network by name — alluded to e-mails and other evidence in their possession, copies of which, they said, were secreted in several locations. But they did tantalize listeners with descriptions of meeting with "sources" outside of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, a high-placed contact looking nervously over his shoulder, references to directives and warnings given by "those at the top," and the undisguised threat of one executive to his underlings: "This is serious, and so will the consequences be if anyone chooses not to be a team player with this."

This comes as no surprise to Fox watchers who have noticed that the Stalinist-style censorship of the Obama regime is already here. This couldn't possibly be because of the healthy shares of stock the Saudis bought in Fox, could it? If so, why would the Saudis care so much about quashing potentially damning revelations about Obama? Have they also bought shares in Obama?

Come to think of it, who exactly paid the tuition for Obama's stint at Harvard Law School? What role did Obama's long-time friend, Khalid al-Mansour, a key advisor to a Saudi billionaire, play? Writer Kenneth Timmerman describes al-Mansour as "well known within the black community as a lawyer, an orthodox Muslim, a black nationalist, an author, an international deal-maker, an educator, and an outspoken enemy of Israel." This is not to omit that al-Mansour was originally contacted to intervene with Harvard on Obama's behalf by Percy Sutton, former Manhattan Borough President and the lawyer of Malcolm X. Ah...the tangled web of it all!

Then there is the question of what role was played by Saudi Prince Alwaleed, the nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia? You remember Prince Alwaleed, who offered then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani $10 million after September 11 if he would only blame America for the terrorist attacks of which 15 of 19 perpetrators were Saudi Arabian — a "gift" the mayor promptly and with appropriate contempt rejected!

In short, what influence have the Saudis exerted on Fox to muzzle the issue of Obama's birth certificate? I don't ask this about the network TV channels or cable channels like CNN and MSNBC, which are still issuing daily hagiographies of Obama.

TIP OF THE ICEBERG

Just who has been sending "the message"? And how did it permeate not only the media, but also the once-respected U.S. Congress and the courts of our land, including the once-incorruptible Supreme Court? And what menacing forces made the once-courageous conservative media abandon their mission to expose rank corruption and collusion?

Two words: Money Talks!

If you're a media mogul and you get word from the FCC that your license will be pulled immediately and irrevocably if you mention only three words — Obama's birth certificate — poof! You send that word to your employees and tell them that their mega-salaries — in fact, their employment — are on the line.

If you're a conservative talk-show host and you get your boss's directive not to dare to mention three words — Obama's birth certificate — poof! Lips sealed; curiosity zero!

If the money thing doesn't work, there's always the threat thing — i.e., "going public" about tax records, health status, or family secrets. Or be audited by the IRS. Or be investigated by any number of regulatory agencies.

And if the money thing and the threat thing don't work, how about being reminded of all those "accidents" and "unfortunate incidents" — broken kneecaps, missing children, "falls" from buildings, punctured tires — that result not in joblessness or embarrassment but in death?

We know that's how the Mafia works. It's also how political machines work. It's also how community organizers work. Wasn't it Obama himself who in 2008 said ''If They Bring a Knife...We Bring a Gun'' and in 2009 advised his followers to "Get in Their Faces!"?

So determined are Obama's handlers to keep the facts of his parentage and place of birth out of the public domain that, as writer Chelsea Schilling has scrupulously documented, "the Federal Election Commission shows Obama's campaign has made regular payments to Perkins Coie since Jan. 1, 2007 — the month he formed a presidential exploratory committee and only weeks before he formally announced his candidacy for president — [and up to the present] — has paid Perkins Coie, a single law firm, $2.3 million...to crush eligibility lawsuits."

But paying lawyers to quash the dozens of lawsuits that have challenged Obama's eligibility still doesn't answer the question of who exactly is behind the blanket blackout of the media, Congress and courts when it comes to Obama's origins, parentage, credentials, indeed identity.

We certainly can't attribute this massive power play to Obama himself. After all, while "owning" the Congress and the media, he is failing miserably to gain support for his two signature pieces of legislation, cap & tax and healthcare "reform." No one that ineffectual — or, as Jonah Goldberg says, "astoundingly incompetent" — could possibly mute the media, castrate the Congress, and cow the courts.

And we can't attribute the blackout to Obama's union and community organizing buddies. While the former are quite expert at threatening members to fall in line...or else, and the latter have mastered standing outside polling places with glowering facial expressions and menacing Billy clubs, neither has the heft to have compelled the media to roll over, the Congress to say they "know nothing," or the courts to load one side of the scales of justice with rocks and the other side with feathers.

A COUP D'ÉTAT?

Scholars and historians have documented exhaustively the Left's obsession with (1) the acquisition of power, and (2) transforming America from a free-market, Constitution-respecting, freedom-loving, God-embracing society into a Socialist-cum-Communist "share the wealth" collective that echoes the beliefs and "values" of their heroes Marx and Engels.

But it takes money to bring about the kind of poverty both Socialism and Communism deliver to their masses. The kind of money only a few at the top enjoy while they'd like the rest of us to wait in food lines and appear before death panels of impersonal state functionaries who decide if we're worthy of antibiotics or surgery and, if not, convenient "go-to-sleep" pills.

The kind of money that "talks" — that can buy people off, finance revolutions, launder money, pay to rig voting machines, manipulate allies into positions of power (czars, anyone?), conveniently crash markets (as George Soros did in England in 1992, Asia in 1997, and, I believe, the U.S. in September 2008), make people disappear, make birth certificates and other vital records disappear, and then make sure that an entire media, Congress, and court system is terrified of "going there."

We all know of the many multimillionaires and billionaires — including Soros, the Saudi royal family, et al. — who contributed to Obama's presidential campaign and continue to fund his leftist agenda, all of them with an ideological, religious, or personal stake in his remaining in power. And all of them part of a larger, more ubiquitous conspiracy — yes, conspiracy! — to conceal Obama's origins and true parentage.

Among them, as J.B. Williams has documented, are "international socialists working through CPUSA — SPUSA and DSAUSA, funded by literally hundreds of leftist front-groups operating as special interest 527 organizations. Here's a short list of the BIGGEST leftist front groups: America Coming Together — Joint Victory Campaign 2004 — Media Fund — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees — MoveOn.org — New Democrat Network — Sierra Club — EMILY's List — AFL-CIO — League of Conservation Voters."

Further, Williams asks: "Who spends an obscene $1-billion dollars to win a lousy $400,000-per-year job, and why?"

Richard Poe, award-winning journalist and New York Times-bestselling author, has written extensively on Soros and makes a good case that the Hungarian-born Jew and self-admitted Nazi collaborator is the primary brains and money behind Obama — and, I believe, his healthcare travesty. When President Bush was in office, Poe wrote that Soros talked openly of a "regime change" in the United States.

"What about our country offends Soros so deeply," Poe asked, "that he would tell the BBC — during a time of war — that he means to use all of his power to 'puncture the bubble of American supremacy'"? Poe explained that Soros's Open Society Foundation, founded in 1984, "has spent millions promoting a radical agenda that includes abortion, feminism, gun control, abolition of capital punishment, voting rights for felons, drug legalization, euthanasia and gay marriage rights....the Soros cult preaches secularism, the godless faith of a world without nations, families, loyalty or tradition, a world in which the very words 'mother,' 'father,' 'husband,' 'wife,' 'son' and 'daughter' will be bleached of meaning forever."

Soros, Poe continued, "is one of the world's leading promoters of euthanasia, or 'mercy killing.' Not only does he advocate 'physician-assisted suicide' for patients who choose death voluntarily, he also lobbies for the right of family members or court-appointed guardians to authorize the killing of patients whose wishes are not known." Sounds a lot like the Death Panels Sarah Palin warned about, doesn't it? Soros also founded the Project on Death in America [which] promotes suicide and euthanasia and urges doctors to warehouse terminally ill patients in hospices and give them 'palliative' care ...rather than wasting time, energy and money actually trying to cure them."

Of course, all of these beliefs are eerily echoed in Obama's healthcare legislation, almost as if Soros had dictated the terms. Maybe he did! Maybe that was the price he exacted for financing a large part of Obama's presidential campaign and facilitating the cover-up of Obama's birth certificate and other documents. And maybe that's why Obama is still paying Soros back by recently announcing that he will invest $2 billion (or more) in drilling for oil off the shores of Brazil, where none other than George Soros owns $5.8 million of the Brazilian oil company's U.S.-traded preferred shares of stock!

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

While Soros may top the list of conspirators who have been trying to topple big, bad, capitalist America for decades, others figure prominently as well, including but not limited to: Noam Chomsky, Louis Farrakhan, Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Jesse Jackson, Michael Moore, Cornel West, Ted Turner, former National Security Advisor to Pres. Jimmy Carter Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Rockefeller family, the Carnegie family, and, I might add, Fidel Castro and the cozy cabal of America-loathing Marxist revolutionaries he met with at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem.

Then there are: The Congressional Progressive Caucus (their members here) aka the Democratic Socialists of America, formed by partners from the Communist Party USA and Socialist Party USA (founder: Sen. Bernie Sanders [I-VA]; The Congressional Black Caucus (their members here), originally established and controlled by the Communist Party USA (founder: Cong. John Conyers [D-MI], and now controlled by ACORN and the Democratic Socialists of America; the ACLU, founded in 1917 by Communist Roger Baldwin; the Southern Poverty Law Center — a mini ACLU; the FORD Foundation; the Annenberg Foundation; the NAACP; the Council on Foreign Relations; the Trilateral Commission; numerous labor unions, and of course the mega-rich sheiks of Araby.

While all of the above and many others have worked assiduously to dismantle America, there are probably only a relative handful of aiders and abettors who ushered the modern-day Trojan Horse Barack Obama into America's body politic and were sophisticated and connected and rich and arch enough to have facilitated his path to the U.S. Senate, sealed all of his records both home and abroad, assembled the massive organization for his run for the presidency, and delivered in only seven months the most radical leftwing — actually more Communist than Socialist — agenda in the history of the United States.

WHO'S NOT CAVING ON THE BC ISSUE?

McLeod and Hagmann have come very close to explaining a major piece of the conspiracy puzzle — specifically how some in the media were either bribed or threatened into silence vis-à-vis Obama's birth certificate. But the American people have a peculiar resistance to and revulsion for these thuggish tactics. In fact, the birth certificate issue has gained momentum. Why is it not going away, but instead gathering steam?

The huge amount of money Obama has spent on this cover-up is, to most Americans, fishy.

Obama's serial apologies for America as he travels the world have offended Americans and convinced them that no genuine American could or would ever behave in such a way.

Last month, when Army Reserve Major Stefan Frederick Cook sued Obama claiming he was not legally qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief and therefore was unqualified to give him orders to deploy to Afghanistan, the government rescinded his orders, thereby negating the "standing" Cook no doubt would have had to sue. District Judge Richard Lazzara of Tampa denied Cook's motions as "frivolous and wholly without merit" and then — guess what? — sealed the records! This should have disqualified the judge. In fact, it raised the eyebrows of millions of Americans.

To the public, rescinding Cook's orders was a de facto admission that Obama is not a natural-born American citizen, and it gives rise to the possibility that untold numbers of military enlistees, in the U.S. and around the world, will follow suit. According to one source, as many as 100 lawyers are preparing to file such litigation, and even class-action suits are being considered.

As Obama's poll numbers continue to plunge, more and more people are waking up to his unique lack of qualifications and inability to lead the greatest nation in the world. As Kyle-Ann Shiver has written, "It's as though [in 2008] 59 million Americans joined hands and shouted at the top of their little lungs, 'Yes, We Can March off This Cliff.'" Not anymore!

Writer James Lewis asks: "How do we fight Obama and his psychopathic lust for power?"...and answers: "You fight evil by exposing it.""

Indeed, the American electorate has never been so energized, with millions upon millions of ordinary citizens — many of them seniors with vested interests in avoiding Obama's death panels — attending Tea Parties, Town Hall meetings, and writing and calling their representatives in massive numbers. In addition, people are now speaking openly about the man without a birth certificate. Who is this guy? What is he hiding? Why are media people studiously avoiding this issue? And why are those who "dare" raise it — like Lou Dobbs at CNN — being targeted by far-left groups, many of them funded by George Soros?

Yet in spite of their efforts to conceal the truth about Obama's birth place and parentage, increasing numbers of articles, radio hosts and their callers and regular Americans have lost their amazingly forbearing patience and are now asking and will continue to ask until the question is answered: WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE? (Source: Renew America: Joan Swirsky.)

CONSPIRACY??? Google and Yahoo Censoring Obama Eligibility Reports (Sep 2009) Joseph Farah claimed that hits on Search Engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) suddenly dropped -- while the ABC and NBC media are picking up the story calling WND and birthers "nuts." Joseph Farah said that it is NOT a coincidence and smells something rotten -- ala Obama -- as they have been on this story for over 11 months, but all of a sudden World Net Daily disappears off the radar. The same complaint was heard from the Orly Taitz site of hits for her site was in the hundreds of thousands and dropped to tens of thousands overnight. (SEE Audio interview Savage Nation with Joseph Farah of World Net Daily.) What makes this allegation plausible is the latest push in Sep 2009 for Obama to gain control of the internet during an "emergency" -- as well as news that the Obama administration wants to archive ALL traffic onto its sites on My Space, Yahoo, etc. In other words, Obama is seeking to control the information flow dealing with his administration.

---

Why do these critics need this vault copy of the birth certificate?

Because Obama will not release any information. Although the Obama campaign could immediately put an end to all the challenges by simply producing the candidate's original birth certificate, it has not done so. And the "Fight the Smears" website offers no explanation as to why Obama has refused to request, and make public, an original hospital-generated birth certificate which the Hawaii Department of Health may possess. (Source: Jerome R. Corsi: World Net Daily.) (SITE NOTE: "Fight the Smears" (http://fightthesmears.com) was removed from the internet on July 2009 along with the copy of the disputed COLB. It is thought to be in reaction to the nationwide billboard campaign in May 2009 by World Net Daily asking "Wheres the Birth Certificate?")

The first reason is legal name changes are annotated on the vault birth certificate. The critics want the vault copy of the birth certificate is to prove Obama's names. Obama has gone under the names Barry Soetoro, Barry Dunham, and Barack Hussein Obama. However, there are questions about the Barry Soetoro name and whether Obama was adopted in Hawaii which would be annotated on the certificate -- or in Indonesia in which case it would not. Obama will NOT answer any questions on his name changes or adoptions. Some people think that the Barry Dunham name was a result of adoption by his grandparents in 1970 -- when his father came to Hawaii and some allege it was because of the adoption. The name Barack Hussein Obama II may be a new name if the others were legally changed. It may have been his original name -- but others say that there is a possibility that Obama's REAL name may be something completely different from the present. Remember that only the latest name shows up on the COLB. (SITE NOTE: We personally believe this adoption took place in Indonesia because without Indonesian citizenship Barry Soetoro (Obama) would have had to attend an International School which are very expensive.)

The second reason is the hospital and location. The Obama campaign gave one hospital and his sister gave another. But the real reason is that some suspect he was not born in Hawaii and a "home birth" would add to their hypothesis that he was born in Kenya or elsewhere -- and brought back to Hawaii to be registered. The location would also be important if it is identified as a "home birth" -- and not in a hospital. This would substantiate Berg's theory of Kenyan birth. (SITE NOTE: Philip Berg needs the birth certificate to prove his claims. Philip Berg in his suit claims, "Shortly thereafter, Applicant discerned that Obama's Mother engaged in a pattern of illegal and fraudulent conduct as a result of both of her two children's birth outside of the United States: (1) Obama, Jr. born in Kenya Africa and (2) Maya Soetoro born in Jakarta Indonesia, but the mother, a US Citizen, raced to Hawaii after each of her children's birth where she engaged in fraudulent conduct upon the United States by declaring a late registration birth for both children claiming that they were born in Hawaii." In other words, Maya Soetoro is shown as being born in Hawaii on her birth certificate COLB (not vault copy), but in fact was born in Indonesia -- the same as Barack Obama.)

Berg's investigators revealed that Obama's own half-sister Maya Soetoro seemed not to know where her own brother was born. In the Nov., 2004 interview by the Rainbow Newsletter Maya Soetoro said Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961 at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. In February, 2008 Maya was interviewed by the Star Bulletin. This time she told reporters that Obama was born on August 4, 1961 at the Kaliolani Medical Center for Women and Children. On June 9, 2008 Wayne Madsen, a journalist with Online Journal published an article in which he said a research team went to Mombassa, Kenya and located a Certificate registering the live birth of Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. to his father, a Kenyan citizen and his mother, a US citizen. (Source: News with Views.) (SITE NOTE: The Madsen report was proved to be false when no information was released by the Republican party.)

The third reason is proof of the father. Remember that we are dealing with allegations of forgery on the COLB. If the REAL father is NOT Barack Obama Sr. it would be revealed here. Some believe that Obama legally changed his name after the fact as an adult to match his "Kenyan father" -- but the real father is on the birth certificate. Others claim that Obama as the first African student at the UH would have caused some problems when entering "African" as race. For the period, "Negro" or "Negroid" were more common. The bottomline is that many simply do not trust the COLB as being real -- and not a forgery. In addition, the "usual occupation of the father" is listed. (SITE NOTE: We believe that Obama Sr is the real father simply because if it was not, the Department of Health officials would be faced with a massive ethical dilemma where they would end up taking a fall if it were a coverup. Remember that the top people said they had "verified" the documents. We believe they would have snitched on Obama -- even anonymously -- if Obama was NOT born by Obama Sr. If this did prove true, they are going to jail or as a minimum lose their jobs.)

The fourth reason is the certifying doctor. This goes along with the "home birth" theory. If it is blank, there are all kinds of theories over where Obama could have been born.

The fifth reason is the most important -- the date. The two dates that are shown on the birth certificate is when Obama was born, but also when the document was registered. The only thing that is known is that the birth was registered "on or about" 8 Aug 1961. A four-day lag may not be unusual IF the hospital is also annotated. If there is no hospital and it is a "home birth" then all kinds of theories come up. The actual registration date would give a clue as to the distance from Hawaii that Obama could have been born. There is apparently a register of the birth in the public records office, dated August 8, 1961, one week after the birth, but it supposedly does not list a place of birth. (Note that a register of birth is not the same as a birth certificate.) (Source: News with Views.)


Photo at airport in 1971


Photo at airport in 1971

In Dec 1971, Obama Sr. returned to Hawaii from Kenya -- AND at the same time Ann Dunham returned from Indonesia. Obama Sr. stayed in Hawaii for one month, but what made this unusual was that he stayed with Ann Dunham's parents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham. The question arises, why did Obama Sr. come back to Hawaii. The Obama campaign seeks to give the impression that he was just passing through. This is NOT true. Other critics say he was just in Hawaii to see his old friends, but that doesn't explain why he would lodge with the Dunhams -- after deserting their daughter in 1963. It was not coincidence that both Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham had come together in Hawaii.

According to Atlas Shrugs, "The sad truth for Barack Hussein Obama Jr, is that Obama Sr didn't return to Hawaii in December 1971 to see his son, but rather to go party with his friends Neil and Pake. That is why there aren't any pictures of Obama Jr. with his dad as an infant, nor are there any pictures of the Dunham grandparents and Obama Sr. Sadly the only picture from when Obama Jr's dad returned to Hawaii is at the airport while Obama Sr. waited for his luggage." These are recollections of his friends Neil Abercrombie, now a US Representative and Pake Zane, now an antique shop owner. Barack Hussein Obama Sr's trip to Honolulu in Dec 1971 was bracketed by two trips that Obama's old snack bar friends from the University of Hawaii made to see him in Kenya. Late in 1968, Neil Abercrombie and Pake Zane traveled through Nairobi on a year-long backpacking trip around the world and stayed with Obama for several days before they made their way on to the port city of Mombasa and to India. No mention was made of Stanley "Ann" Dunham or Barack Hussein Obama Jr. Neil Abercrombie is now Hawaii State's 1st district Representative in the US Congress. He is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who until 1999, worked in open partnership with Democratic Socialists of America. Pake Zane runs a store called Antique Alley in Hawaii. Although in the 1960's Hawaii offered a diverse cultural mix, native Hawaiian Pake Zane recalls that "He (Obama Sr.) was the first real black man I ever met". (Source: Atlas Shrugs.)

SITE NOTE: Neil Abercrombie endorsed Obama for President and the Obama campaign choses the phrase "was close friends with Obama's parents" and "has known the president-elect since he was born." However, other statements show that he only knew Obama Sr. and did not even know Obama Jr. existed. He has been quoted as saying that Ann Dunham was present at "some of the weekend parties." Thus far he is the only one that has recognized Ann Dunham's connection to Obama Sr. at the University of Hawaii.

Neil Abercrombie came out for Obama in Dec 2006. "At a press conference today by the federal building, Rep. Neil Abercrombie and others pledged to support Obama. Large signs with a 'rubba slippa' were created to tell Obama - "If you run, we'll be your feet." So far, those feet include Abercrombie, former House candidate Brian Schatz, state reps and party activists." (Daily KOS.)

“When Obama gets on television, the national pulse goes down about 10 points,” said Representative Neil Abercrombie, Democrat of Hawaii, who was close friends with Mr. Obama’s parents. “He has this incredibly calming effect. There’s no question in my mind it comes from Hawaii.” Mr. Abercrombie, who has known the president-elect since he was born, said Mr. Obama’s tranquil, even-keeled mannerisms resembled those of his grandfather, Stanley Dunham. As a child, Mr. Obama would follow Mr. Dunham everywhere, walking through the neighborhoods of Honolulu and beyond. “He gives off a little oasis of calm,” said Mr. Abercrombie, who is spending the Christmas holidays in Hawaii. “He is peaceful water in the maelstrom, which will serve him very well in these circumstances when there happens to be a crisis.” (Source: NY Times.)

SITE NOTE: What appears strange is the question: After walking out on Obama permanently in June 1962 and divorcing his mother in 1964, why would he return to Hawaii AND STAY WITH THE DUNHAMS WHO HAD NO REASON TO LIKE HIM AT ALL? Why wouldn't he stay with his good buddy friends instead of the Dunhams? The reason would have to be that there was a particular reason for his presence that involved not only Ann Dunham, but also Madelyn and Stanley Dunham. Obama Sr.'s presence was required for a month. THIS SUGGESTS THAT THERE WAS LEGAL PAPERWORK THAT HAD TO BE PROCESSED. However, what kind of paperwork cannot be discerned. This would explain why after all the bad history between Obama Sr. and the Dunham family, he stayed with them.

There are TWO possibilities:

• (1) Obama Sr and Ann Dunham were never married legally and Barack Obama was ILLEGITIMATE. Obama Sr. came to Hawaii to testify that he was the birth father. The first birth record may have listed the father as unknown. Obama has never produced records of his supposed parent's marriage or divorce -- and critics surmise that they most likely don't exist. The story goes that six months after Dunham married Obama Sr. on Feb. 2, 1961, Obama was born on Aug 4, 1961. Obama's own father and mother's wedding in Hawaii may not have been properly documented either. "How and when the marriage occurred remains a bit murky, a bill of particulars that I have never quite had the courage to explore," Obama writes in his memoir. (SITE NOTE: The mainstream media has chosen not to investiqate this inconsistency.)
  
  We do NOT hold to the Atlas Shrugs theory that Ann became pregnant from a "prominent black liberal activist" -- then continues to make allusions to similarities of Obama to Malcom X (Malcolm Little). But we do agree that the timeline is suspicious. "She then conceived Barack Hussein Obama Jr. only one month after she started classes Sept 26th 1960. Then, while only two months pregnant in early January 1961, Stanley "Ann" Dunham drops out of college. She then supposedly married Briarack Obama Sr. three months after conception and only four months after arriving in Hawaii. And only 10 months after first arriving in Hawaii, she is back at the University of Washington, 2680 miles away." For now, we simply state that we do not know who the father could be. It is plausible that Obama could be the father.
  
  At that time of Obama's birth, Obama Sr. (who may or may not be the birth father) agreed to be publicly known as the father in order to gain a financial arrangement of receiving a married couple stipend from the UH East-West Center. He was planning to return to Kenya after his graduation -- and only later was accepted to Harvard. This was only to be a temporary arrangement before Obama Sr. disappeared back into Kenya. The birth story was all a sham to cover up the shame of an illegitimate birth. This is why the birth announcement in the Advertiser showed one address for the couple (6085 Kalanianaole Highway), but Obama Sr. was shown as residing at another address (625 11th Ave. in Kaimuki). This is why Ann Dunham lived apart from Obama Sr. almost immediately from Aug 2008 when she may have gone to Washington state to see her friends -- and enrolled in the University of Washington in the Autumn semester of 1961 and only returned to Hawaii when Obama was headed to Harvard. In fact, everything was a sham. We have previously hypothesized that the relationship between Obama and Dunham was in the end only a financial arrangement -- to gain Obama a stipend from the East-West Center of the UH through the use of forged marriage documents -- while providing Ann Dunham a modicum of respectability without having to endure the shame of an illegitimate birth. This might explain the confusing and conflicting comments related by her old Washington school friends of conversations with Ann Dunham in 1961 about Obama going back to Kenya and their starting a new life there -- when Obama would not leave until 1965. It was all a cover story to mask the fact of illegitimacy. (SITE NOTE: In Hawaii, illegitimate births were common amongst the Hawaiian populace and the concept of "hanai" being raised by one's relatives was not considered a major disgrace. However, amongst Hawaii's upper class caucasian populace -- those whose children attend Punahou -- an illegitimate birth relegated one to a different status -- that of the low-class "opala haole" (trash white). This might have motivated Ann Dunham's actions in 1971 to spare her parents and her child any disgrace. In a 1959 interview with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Obama Sr. described the absence of racial prejudice in Hawaii as "unique." No one, he marveled, "seems to be conscious of color." Obama Sr’s perceptions of race relations in Hawaii were that he thought it "rather strange ... even rather amusing, to see Caucasians discriminated against here.")
  
  Barack Obama's illegitimacy would have been revealed on his enrollment into Punahou -- and this was an attempt to correct the matter after the fact. THIS IS WOULD EXPLAIN WHY Obama WAS REGISTERED AT PUNAHOU AS "BARRY DUNHAM" -- HIS MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME ... INSTEAD OF BARACK HUSSEIN Obama OR BARRY SOETORO. This is what would have been shown on his birth certificate. This action to enter Obama legally as the birth father was to cover everyone's tracks. This was the significant problem that required BOTH Ann Dunham and Obama Sr. to be present in Hawaii at the same time.
  
  This was a move in 1971 to legally change the birth certificate and mask the illegitimacy. Remember that Obama's grandmother had risen in status since his birth. She was an hourly-wage bank teller when Obama was born in 1961, but was now a VP at the Bank of Hawaii in 1971 -- just as she had been a VP at a bank before in Seattle. The revelation of a fraudulent marriage would have implicated Madelyn Dunham in a money scam at the UH since Obama was declared publicly as the father -- and had received a stipend to reside off-campus as married instead of the dormitories. In addition, the revelation of Obama's illegitimacy would reveal that there was fraud from the inception -- opening Madelyn and Stanley Dunham as co-conspirators to defraud the US government in the initial Obama arrangement for financial gain. Madelyn and Stanley were now much too old to relocate again and start over. Remember that Obama Sr. still had friends in Hawaii -- who were in 1971 rising in political circles (Neil Abercrombie) and business (Pake Zane) -- who remembered his situation. This was a coverup to legitimize Obama's birth records.
  
  The legal action was to include Obama Sr's name on the birth certificate. Full name of Father: Barack Hussein Obama I / Race of Father: African (NOTE: Not "Negroid" as is normally accepted) / Age of Father: 23 / Birthplace (Island, state or foreign country): Kenya / Usual Occupation: Student / Kind of Business or Industry: Education.
  
  The ramifications of this allegation is that the birth certificate of Obama would have been legally altered at that time to reflect the new name change -- Barack Hussein Obama. What this means is that Obama was born Barry Dunham -- using his mother's maiden name. It was only at this adoption that he assumed his father's name. All of Obama's carefully constructed myth of a "family" might collapse if this is revealed. The birth certificate would show that he was born illegitimate -- then this would implicate his mother and her family in a scam to defraud the US government (who paid Obama's off-campus living stipend). This would implicate his grandparents into this coverup -- and also show complicity in this fraud.
  
  However, a major question would arise as to how would this impact the Obama Presidency? If he were born illegitimately in Hawaii with only one US parent, he would be considered a "natural born citizen." He would not possess dual citizenship -- nor owe allegiance to a foreign government. In this case, he would be qualified to run for President as a "natural born citizen." However, once one gets into this aspect, then we call up his Indonesian citizenship and his possession of an Indonesian passport which he allegedly used at age 20 to go to Pakistan and Indonesia. This would have made him a "naturalized citizen" and therefore ineligible to run for the Presidency.
  
  
• (2) Obama was legally adopted by Madelyn and Stanley Dunham. Madelyn and Stanley would adopt Obama -- while Obama Sr. testified that he was the birth father and agreed to the adoption; and Ann Dunham agreed to the adoption as the birth mother. The adoption of Lolo Soetoro gave Barack Obama Indonesian citizenship, but the US did not recognize the Indonesian dual citizenship at the time -- so Obama was only legally a US citizen because minor's citizenship status is NOT affected by the actions of adults or legal guardians. The Indonesian adoption not considered valid in America...though Obama did possess an Indonesian passport which he retained and renewed. (This cannot be proved.) We do NOT hold much credence in this adoption theory.
  
  Critics allege that Barry Soetoro was adopted by Madelyn Payne Dunham & Stanley Armour Dunham because Obama was actually illegitimate -- and there was never any marriage. But the question keeps popping up as to why??? Why would an adoption be necessary? Normally legal guardianship would have been sufficient to handle Obama's education, health care and other problems for his entry into Punahou. Obama was already attending Punahou in the 5th grade by the time Dec 1971 rolled around so the legal guardianship vested in Madelyn and Stanley Dunham was sufficient. If Obama was illegitimate, this would have been revealed upon his enrollment into Punahou. This is because at the time, the vault copy of the CERTIFICATE of Live Birth (vault copy of Birth Certificate) was the only document used in Hawaii. Though Obama might have been revealed as illegitimate in initial registration, there is no requirement on school records to annotate this fact. It would have remained hidden -- though it would crop up the next time he had to produce his birth certificate. Adoption seems very radical approach to resolve this problem, especially if there were simply school problems involved. A legal guardianship should suffice.
  
  According to critics of Obama, the second adoption was a little "dicey" -- the first being by Lolo Soetoro in Indonesia -- especially since Ann Dunham was still married to Lolo Soetoro. It is alleged that Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro asked Barack Hussein Obama Sr to fly in from Kenya in 1971 and testify that he was in fact the birth father. Obama Sr would have to have signed the paperwork for the adoption, along with Ann Dunham. Again this is all pure speculation without proof. The bank vault copy of Obama's birth certificate is required to show a legal change in name, but of course, Obama refuses to show the document. However, we must repeat that we still see no advantage to the adoption of Barack Obama by Madelyn and Stanley Dunham.

SITE NOTE: Isn't it great to smell the scent of FEAR in the morning. After the Nationwide tax revolt -- the American Tea Party in many cities -- Obama immediately sent out his "PR" doggies out to discredit this grassroots movement. However, looking at the videos on YouTube has created the image that these are not Obots -- people who show up to an "event" but without commitment. These are die-hards and their rhetoric was not polite. The same day Obama addressed the troops at Camp Lejeune and received a "polite" welcome -- not the Bush-type "oo-rah" smiles and handshakes. Not a great photo op...and the chill of the first of the military "revolt" is hitting home. Then the states are starting to jump upon the 10th Amendment bandwagon. The ball is rolling -- and the threat is to politicians that the next time round, they will be out. The Obama "PR" folks are out in force to discredit the "fringe" -- or at least attempt to cause conservatives to turn their backs on them. The US Congress has already refused to admit to the "natural born citizen" clause -- claiming that the US Supreme Court has not defined it. But sooner or later, someone will slip and force the issue. Obama is under attack and FEAR is dripping from the Democrats.)

SITE NOTE: Our question is why was Ann Dunham in Washington state one month after the birth of Obama and then enrolled in UW in Autumn 1961 -- and returned to Hawaii only after Obama Sr. had departed for Harvard in 1962. The mainstream media REFUSES to pick up the ball and question anything.)

SITE NOTE: The AOL Poll showed that more than half believe that Obama is covering up something. These are THEIR polls.)

SITE NOTE: This is correct. There are a lot of nuts out there -- and some very credible blogs are listening to Larry Sinclair -- a whack-job if there was one. In June 2009, he published his book and we wish him well on his sales. He said at the time that he was working on his second book. There are many more. We are the fringe, but we are keeping a low-profile. The troublemakers are those that want the limelight at all costs. Unfortunately, Orly Taitz also seems to come across like this at times -- but what she is doing is attacking Obama to get at the truth. That the LIBERAL media is even talking about Orly Taitz shows that they FEAR her and her suits.)

SITE NOTE: Orly Taitz may have an online degree, but it was good enough to have her gain a license to plead her case in the Supreme Court. Hey, Abe Lincoln just took the bar exam to become an attorney. BUT NOTICE THE OBAMA DISCREDITING TACTIC AND THE FEAR FACTOR SHOWING!!! See California Bar Association for her records. We're wondering why no one on the Obama Squad wants to question if Taitz is JEWISH -- as the Obama crowd are showing signs of being anti-Semitic. Taitz went to Undergraduate School: Hebrew Univ; Jerusalem Israel and Law School at William Howard Taft Univ; Santa Ana CA. I guess this is what the reporters call an "online law school." She was admitted to the California State Bar in 2002.)

SITE NOTE: THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WOOCHER HAS SAID HE HAS BEEN DOING THIS PRO BONO. Amazing!!! A lawyer doing this for FREE!!! Wow...BUT how about the THREE LAW FIRMS involved. Are they all pro bono? Give me a break!!! Again the investigative reporting from the Obama White House has tentacles. Later in May 2009 it was revealed that Obama had paid approximately $1.4 million to three law firms for doing legal work during his CAMPAIGN out of his political war chest. The FEC did NOT challenge this payment as an irregularity -- the same way the FEC refuses to investigate the illegal donations from overseas that flooded in during the campaign.)

SITE NOTE: But Lingle knows that she had better play ball with a state that has been Democratic since the 1950s. We don't fault the state over the release, they have regs dating back to 1949 that prevents this. We fault Obama.)

SITE NOTE: Even we do not ascribe to Berg's Kenya theories, but the truth is unless Obama produces his birth certificate, Philip Berg's theories are just as good as ours.)

SITE NOTE: We knew nothing about Obama until Oct 2008 when we started sifting through what was available. We are now convinced he is a liar and a back-stabbing Machiavellian politician. There are too many questions -- and what facts there are indicate that his whole background is one big hoax.)

Born in the U.S.A.

Pres. Barack Obama has a birthday coming up, a week from Tuesday. We hope he takes the day off—or even the whole week, the briefest of respites from his busy schedule of truncating our liberties while exhausting both the public coffers and our patience. The president's birthday comes to mind because we recently spent some time looking at a photograph of his birth certificate, being held by Joe Miller of Factcheck.org, who took the time to examine it. President Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at 7:24 p.m, in Honolulu County, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. The serial number on his birth certificate is 010641.

Baby Barack's birth was not heralded, as some of his partisans have suggested, by a star in the east, but it was heralded by the Honolulu Star, as well as the Honolulu Advertiser, each of which published birth announcements for young Mr. Obama. Much foolishness has become attached to the question of President Obama's place of birth, and a few misguided souls among the Right have indulged it. The myth that Barack Obama is ineligible to be president represents the hunt for a magic bullet that will make all the unpleasant complications of his election and presidency disappear. We are used to seeing conspiracy theories from the Left, for instance among the one in three Democrats who believe that 9/11 was an inside job conducted with the foreknowledge of the Bush administration.

We've seen everything under the sun blamed on Dick Cheney and Halliburton, and Rosie O'Donnell has given us much mirth with her metallurgical expertise, while Andrew Sullivan has beclowned himself and tarnished the good name of The Atlantic with his investigation into the "real" parentage of Trig Palin. Most notable, the Iraq War summoned the craziness in a big way, and there are those who still shudder over their espressos at the mention of the Carlyle Group. And there is a fair amount of crossover between those fixated on Obama's birth certificate and the 9/11 "truthers" — lawyer Phil Berg, for instance, is a player in both worlds. There is nothing that President Obama's coterie would enjoy more than to see the responsible Right become a mirror image of the loopy Left circa 2003.

The birth-certificate business is not a uniquely conservative phenomenon; the allegation that Obama was born in Kenya seems to have originated with a Hillary Clinton supporter at a blog called The Blue State. Either way, this fantasy is not particularly widespread within the conservative movement, but it has attracted enough interest that it needs to be addressed.

The fundamental fiction is that Obama has refused to release his "real" birth certificate. This is untrue. The document that Obama has made available is the document that Hawaiian authorities issue when they are asked for a birth certificate. There is no secondary document cloaked in darkness, only the state records that are used to generate birth certificates when they are requested.

If one applies for a United States passport, the passport office will demand a birth certificate. It defines this as an official document bearing "your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records." (SITE NOTE: Researchers at the World Net Daily claim that the CERTIFICATION of Live Birth (short form) -- NOT the CERTIFICATE of Live Birth (long form) -- can NOT be used to obtain a U.S. passport according to calls into the State Department Passport Agency. We find this information conflicts with commonsense as Hawaii residents going on overseas tours would most assuredly receive CERTIFICATION of Live Birth if the Department of Health is to be believed that this is all it issues since June 2009. Something does not add up.)

The Hawaiian birth certificate President Obama has produced—the document is formally known as a "certificate of live birth"—bears that information. It has been inspected by reporters, and several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president's birth certificate—which is precisely what one expects, of course, since the state records are used to generate those documents when they are requested. In other words, what President Obama has produced is the "real" birth certificate of myth and lore. The director of Hawaii's health department and the registrar of records each has personally verified that the information on Obama's birth certificate is identical to that in the state's records, the so-called vault copy. Given that fact, we are loath even to engage the fanciful notion that President Obama was born elsewhere, contrary to the information on his birth certificate, but we note for the record that his mother was a native of Kansas, whose residents have been citizens of the United States for a very long time, and whose children are citizens of the United States as well.

The attention paid to President Obama's place of birth is not unprecedented. In fact, it may be the only thing President Obama has in common with Pres. Chester Arthur, whose opponents whispered that he had been born in Canada. A number of unsuccessful presidential candidates—George Romney, Barry Goldwater, and Lowell Weicker among them—actually were born outside of the United States (in Mexico, the Arizona Territory, and Paris, respectively) to American parents and thereby into American citizenship. If the conspiracy theorists have evidence that President Obama went through the naturalization process, let them show it. But there is no such evidence, because this theory is based on unreality, as two minutes' examining the claims of its proponents reveals. The hallmark of a conspiracy theory is that a lack of evidence for the theory is taken as yet more evidence for the theory. Indeed, the maddening thing about dealing with conspiracy hobbyists of this or any sort is the ever-shifting nature of their argument and their alleged evidence: Never mind the birth certificate, his step-grandmother said he was born in Kenya! (No, she didn't.)

One of the unfortunate consequences of this red-herring discussion is that there are plenty of questions about Obama's background and history that we would like to have answered. In spite of two books of memoirs, there remain murky areas in his biography. And when it comes to those college transcripts, count us among those who'd love to know whether Dr. Bailout ever took an advanced economics class and how he performed in it.

Barack Obama may prefer European-style socialized health care. He may consider himself a citizen of the Earth and sometimes address his audiences as "people of the world," as though he were born not in another country but on another planet. Like Bruce Springsteen, he has a lot of bad political ideas; but he was born in the U.S.A. (Source: National Review.)

The Queen's Medical Center
1301 Punchbowl StreetHonolulu, HI 96813
Phone number 808-538-9011 General Medical Records 808-547-4361.

Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children
1319 Punahou StreetHonolulu, Hawaii 96826(808) 535-7000
Kapiolani Medical Center

In the first six months of 2009, the following letter from Obama to Kapiolani Hospital's website acknowledging Obama's birth there. However, the hospital refused to officially acknowledge that Obama was born there due to privacy issues. In July 2009, the letter was removed because of the publicity about it. (SITE NOTE: The letter itself is a HTML composite with the letter head and Obama signature as jpg images. When questioned the letter was removed without explanation from the Kapiolani Hospital website. When White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was queried on its authenticity, he would not respond. (WND) Later an actual copy of the letter was produced with a Presidential seal showing the letter was real.)

The Queen's Medical Center - Honolulu, Hawaii -- Obama claims as his birth hospital (SITE NOTE: In July 2009, the Obama website "Fight the Smears" that stated Queens as his birth hospital was removed from the internet along with the COLB image. Snopes.com also changed its entry about Obama's birth at the same time to reflect Kapiolani Hospital. It is believed this action was a direct result of the World Net Daily's billboard campaign nationwide asking: "Where's the Birth Certificate?" launched in June 2009.)
Kapi' olani Medical Center -- Obama's sister claims Barack Obama born here. (SITE NOTE: In a November 2004 interview with the Rainbow Newsletter, Maya told reporters her half-brother Sen. Barack Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961, at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu; then in February 2008, Maya told reporters for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that Obama was at the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children. In 2009, Obama acknowledged his birth at this hospital, but the hospital will not acknowledge the birth due to privacy concerns.)
Honolulu Shriners Hospital -- Never a patient Mom or Obama
Straub Clinic & Hospital -- Never a patient Mom or Obama
Hawaii Health Systems Corporation - Honolulu, Hawaii -- Never a patient Mom or Obama
Cancer Institute of Maui - Wailuku, Hawaii -- No Comment ???
Kuakini Hospital - Honolulu, Hawaii -- Never a patient Mom or Obama
Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific - Honolulu, Hawaii -- Never a patient Mom or Obama
St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii - Hawaii -- Never a patient Mom or Obama
Straub Heatlh - Honolulu, Hawaii -- Never a patient Mom or Obama
Tripler Medical Center - Honolulu, Hawaii -- Never a patient Mom or Obama
Wahiawa General Hospital - Wahiawa, Hawaii -- Never a patient Mom or Obama
Wilcox Memorial Hospital - Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii -- Never a patient Mom or Obama

(Source: Free Republic.)

The issue of Obama revealing his birth certificate (vault copy) is a moot point. Had he disclosed his vault copy in the Berg v. Obama lawsuit (which was the first lawsuit filed on the question of his eligibility to be President), and it was established he was born in Hawaii, that would have constituted res judicata, and acted to stop other similar lawsuits being filed. Without res judicata (meaning, the matter is adjudged and settled conclusively) he or government officials will need to defend other lawsuits, and valuable court resources will be expended. Strategically from a legal standpoint, therefore, his refusal to disclose doesn't make sense. Weighing factors such as costs, resources and complexity of disclosing versus not disclosing, he must have reason of considerable downside in disclosing, or upside in not disclosing. (Source: American Thinker)

Who is Eligible to Apply for the Issuance of a Late Birth Certificate in Lieu of a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth?

The Certificate of Hawaiian Birth program was established in 1911, during the territorial era, to register a person born in Hawaii who was one year old or older and whose birth had not been previously registered in Hawaii. The Certificate of Hawaiian Birth Program was terminated in 1972, during the statehood era.

Certified copies of a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth may be requested following the procedures for certified copies of standard birth certificates (see Certified Copies). The eligibility requirements for issuance of a certified copy of a standard birth certificate apply to Certificates of Hawaiian Birth. And the same fees charged for standard birth certificates are charged for Certificates of Hawaiian Birth. Copies of the set of testimony used to establish a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth may also be requested, and an additional fee is charged for each copy of the set of testimony.

Any person to whom a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth has been issued may submit a request to amend an entry, including a legal change of name, on an existing Certificate. A request to amend a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth will, however, be considered to be and treated as an application with the Department of Health for registration of a late certificate of birth in current use, unless a standard birth certificate for that person already exists in the vital records of the Department of Health. Should there be a situation of dual registration, the requested amendment will be made to the standard birth certificate on file if the required documentary evidence in support of the amendment has been submitted and evaluated to be adequate. If there is no standard birth certificate on file, an applicant is required to submit documentary evidence of the birth facts necessary to support of the registration of the late certificate of birth. If approved, the late birth certificate will be registered in place of the Certificate of Hawaiian Birth, which must then be surrendered to the Department of Health. (Source: Hawaii Department of Health.)

Any person born in Hawaii who is one year old or older and whose birth has not been previously registered in Hawaii, or that person's parent, guardian, next of kin, or older person acting for that person and having knowledge of the facts of birth may request the registration of a late certificate of birth, except that an application will not be accepted for a deceased person. (Source: Hawaii Department of Health.)

Amended certificates of birth may be prepared and filed with the Department of Health, as provided by law, for 1) a person born in Hawaii who already has a birth certificate filed with the Department of Health or 2) a person born in a foreign country. (Source: Hawaii Department of Health.)

For a person born in a foreign country who has been legally adopted in the State of Hawaii: An amended birth certificate will be prepared upon receipt of a certified copy of the adoption decree or the certificate of adoption, and payment of fees.

If we read this correctly, Obama could have walked in to the office in 2008 and applied for a late registration -- and been granted it. This would show up as being born in Hawaii on the COLB as his birth certificate. However, the bank vault copy would be the only instrument to tell the real truth. Who knows what's on the vault copy? Again -- we will never know as long as Obama refuses to produce it.

---

Could Obama Have Been Registered as a "Home Birth" in Hawaii?

YES -- but can't be proven without the vault copy of birth certificate. Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child's birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence. (SITE NOTE: This is the situation for my daughter who was born in Kunsan, Korea, but has a State of Hawaii birth certificate.)

It is also possible that Obama's mother registered the birth as a "home birth" and substituted the information. Supposedly internet reports state that the Kapiolani and Queen's Hospitals records in Hawaii showed no record of Ann Durnham/Obama giving birth to a child on 4 Aug 1961 -- but this was BEFORE Governor Lingle sealed those records. There is a "registry of birth" on or about 8 Aug 1961 in the public records office. The announcement of birth in the Honolulu Advertiser was made on or about 13 Aug -- two weeks AFTER the birth. (Source: Court Document: para 19.) The same identical announcement was made in the Honolulu Star Bulletin. Both the Advertiser and Star Bulletin used a listing distributed by the Department of Health at the time. (Source: Honolulu Advertiser.))) This information is all very hazy. Critics say this is why Obama refuses to release his vault copy of his birth certificate as it would show that he was NOT born in a hospital -- and possibly born in Kenya.



WND also found on microfilm in the Honolulu downtown public library a notice published under the "Births, Marriages, Deaths" section of the Honolulu Sunday Advertiser for August 13, 1961, on page B-6, noting: "Mr. and Mrs. Barack II Obama. 6085 Kalanianaole-Hwy, son, Aug. 4." In searching through the birth notices of the Honolulu Advertiser for 1961, WND found many birth notices were published between one and two weeks after the date of birth listed. The notice in the Honolulu Advertiser does not list the hospital where the Obama son was born or the doctor who delivered the baby. (SITE NOTE: The same identical announcement was made in the Honolulu Star Bulletin. Both the Advertiser and Star Bulletin used a listing distributed by the Department of Health at the time. (Source: Honolulu Advertiser.))


Obama Birth Announcement

Hot Air Blog added some info on this topic on 12 Oct 2008. It stated:

Born In Kenya or Hawaii? A blogger on Hot Air comments: "My own children have Certificates of Live Birth, because they were born at home with a midwife. I brought the babies to the County Office and registered their births a couple of weeks after the fact."

This is correct. If a baby is not born in the hospital, then the parents must register the birth themselves. Worldwide, lots of babies are born outside of hospitals, and it's possible to get birth certificates for them.

Of course, Obama's mother would be motivated to register Obama's birth as having happened in Hawaii, because then he would have an unencumbered claim to US citizenship.

1. Under Hawaiian law, it is possible (both legally and illegally) for a person to have been born out of state, yet have a birth certificate on file in the Department of Health.

• A. From Hawaii's official Department of Health, Vital Records webpage: "Amended certificates of birth may be prepared and filed with the Department of Health, as provided by law, for 1) a person born in Hawaii who already has a birth certificate filed with the Department of Health or 2) a person born in a foreign country" (applies to adopted children).
  
  
• B. A parent may register an in-state birth in lieu of certification by a hospital of birth under HRS 338-5.
  
  
• C. Hawaiian law expressly provides for registration of out-of-state births under HRS 338-17.8. A foreign birth presumably would have been recorded by the American consular of the country of birth, and presumably that would be reflected on the Hawaiian birth certificate.
  
  
• D. Hawaiian law, however, expressly acknowledges that its system is subject to error. See, for example, HRS 338-17.
  
  
• E. Hawaiian law expressly provides for verification in lieu of certified copy of a birth certificate under HRS 338-14.3.
  
  
• F. Even the Hawaii Department of Home Lands does not accept a certified copy of a birth certificate as conclusive evidence for its homestead program. From its web site: "In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certification of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certification of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL."
  
  

2, Contrary to what you may have read, no document made available to the public, nor any statement by Hawaiian officials, evidences conclusively that Obama was born in Hawaii.

• A. Associated Press reported about a statement of Hawaii Health Department Director Dr. Fukino, "State declares Obama birth certificate genuine."
  
  
• B. That October 31, 2008 statement says that Dr. Fukino "ha[s] personally seen and verified that the Hawai'i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures." That statement does not, however, verify that Obama was born in Hawaii, and as explained above, under Hawaiian policies and procedures it is quite possible that Hawaii may have a birth record of a person not born in Hawaii. Unlikely, but possible. (SITE NOTE: On 27 Jul 2009, Hawaii's health director again claimed to have seen "original vital records" that prove "Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen." Chiyome Fukino issued the brief statement in response to the rising chorus of concern across the country about Obama's failure to release a copy of his long-form birth certificate that would reveal the hospital in which he was born, the attending physician and other pertinent details. "I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawai'i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai'i State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai'i and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago." (Source: Hawaii DOH.)
  
  Our question is how can Dr. Fukino state Obama is a "natural born citizen" when this is the fact that the Supreme Court has NOT ruled on whereby Obama being born a dual British-US citizen could not possibly meet the requirements of Article II of the Constitution). In fact, the Certification of Live Birth (short form) in fact proves the OPPOSITE -- that Obama is NOT a "natural born citizen" whose father was an "African" (under race) making Obama a dual-citizen of the US-Britain upon his birth.
  
  
• C. The document that the Obama campaign released to the public is a certified copy of Obama's birth record, which is not the best evidence since, even under Hawaiian law, the original vault copy is the better evidence. Presumably, the vault record would show whether his birth was registered by a hospital in Hawaii.
  
  
• D. Without accusing anyone of any wrongdoing, we nevertheless know that some people have gone to great lengths, even in violation of laws, rules and procedures, to confer the many benefits of United States citizenship on themselves and their children. Given the structure of the Hawaiian law, the fact that a parent may register a birth, and the limited but inherent potential for human error within the system, it is possible that a parent of a child born out-of-state could have registered that birth to confer the benefits of U.S. citizenship, or simply to avoid bureaucratic hassles at that time or later in the child's life.
  
  
  • 1. We don't know whether the standards of registration by the Department of Health were more or less stringent in 1961 (the year of Obama's birth) than they are today. However, especially with post-9/11 scrutiny, we do know that there have been instances of fraudulent registrations of foreign births as American births.
    
    
  • 2. From a 2004 Department of Justice news release about multiple New Jersey vital statistics employees engaged in schemes to issue birth certificates to foreign-born individuals: "An individual who paid Anderson and her co-conspirators for the service of creating the false birth records could then go to Office of Vital Statistics to receive a birth certificate . . . As part of the investigation, federal agents executed a search warrant of the HCOVS on Feb. 18, 2004, which resulted in the seizure of hundreds of suspect Certificates of Live Birth which falsely indicated that the named individuals were born in Jersey City, when in fact, they were born outside the United States and were in the United States illegally . . . Bhutta purchased from Goswamy false birth certificates for himself and his three foreign-born children."
    
    
  • 3. Even before 9/11, government officials acknowledged the "ease" of obtaining birth certificates fraudulently. From 1999 testimony by one Social Security Administration official: "Furthermore, the identity data contained in Social Security records are only as reliable as the evidence on which the data are based. The documents that a card applicant must present to establish age, identity, and citizenship, usually a birth certificate and immigration documents-are relatively easy to alter, counterfeit, or obtain fraudulently."
    
    

(Source: American Thinker.)

I will be assisting one of my readers in filing litigation in Hawaii state circuit court pursuant to her ongoing request for public information denied by Hawaii officials. (Readers of my blog will recognize her as MissTickly aka TerriK.)

Correspondence sent to TerriK by Hawaii officials indicates that President Obama’s vital records have been amended and official records pertaining thereto are maintained by the state of Hawaii.

I will issue a full statement and press release on behalf of TerriK via this blog in the days ahead. This statement will include a complete history of correspondence between TerriK and Hawaii state officials in the Office of Information Practices (OIP) and the Department of Health (DoH). Any legal assistance provided by me to TerriK will be pro bono. I will seek to be admitted pro hac vice in Hawaii for purposes of filing the case and conducting the trial. If such admission is not forthcoming, other counsel may be retained or TerriK may represent herself pro se. In any case, I will be drafting the pleadings. The only issue will be related to who files them and conducts the trial de novo.

While correspondence sent to TerriK confirms that President Obama’s vital records have been amended, the DoH has refused to make the documents requested available. One count of the litigation will attempt to have those documents released. The other counts concern various information denied to her which – according to Hawaii law – she is entitled to.

Before I get to the facts of the ongoing investigation in my follow up report, I will ask readers to study the UIPA manual and the UIPA statute. Hawaii has been caught blatantly circumventing their own laws; laws specifically created to foster open government practices.

STANDING

TerriK has standing to pursue this action under the statute. The UIPA manual states:

“Any person” may make a request for government records under part II, the Freedom of Information section of the UIPA. “Person” is defined broadly to include an individual, government agencies, partnerships and any other legal entities. Under part II, a government agency generally may not limit access to public records based on who the requester is or the proposed use of the record.

ISSUES

Section 92F-12(15) states that the following must be released to the public:

(15) Information collected and maintained for the purpose of making information available to the general public;

On July 27, 2009 Hawaii Department of Health Director Fukino issued a press release which stated:

“I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of the Hawai?i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai‘i State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai‘i and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago.”

TerriK requested all information “collected and maintained” for the purposes of preparing the public statement made by Director Fukino as such information must be released according to the statute.

TerriK was interested in knowing how Director Fukino came to the conclusion that the President was a natural born citizen. She was familiar with Section 92F-12(15) which demands that all information collected and maintained for the purposes of making such a public statement be made public. She was denied that information despite the clear wording in the statute. Furthermore, the case law from Hawaii clearly demands production of the records TerriK requested. I will provide legal research and relevant examples of official correspondence in my follow up report and press release at this blog. TerriK has previously provided details of her investigation and correspondence with the state of Hawaii in comments to this and other blogs. She has also authorized me to speak publicly about her case and to provide the public with all relevant correspondence.

Furthermore, Hawaii officials - upon denying TerriK access to information requested – were required by statute to inform her of a right to appeal by trial de novo in Hawaii circuit court. They failed to provide such guidance to her. Section 92F-15.5(b) states:

(b)… If the denial of access is upheld, in whole or in part, the office of information practices shall, in writing, notify the person of the decision, the reasons for the decision, and the right to bring a judicial action under section 92F-15(a). [L 1989, c 192, §1]

The OIP failed to notify TerriK of her right to a judicial appeal. Instead, the OIP simply told her that the decision to deny access was correct and that they could not help her any further.

We will bring this litigation according to the following statute provision:

§92F-15 Judicial enforcement.

(a) A person aggrieved by a denial of access to a government record may bring an action against the agency at any time within two years after the agency denial to compel disclosure.

(b) In an action to compel disclosure the circuit court shall hear the matter de novo. Opinions and rulings of the office of information practices shall be admissible. The circuit court may examine the government record at issue, in camera, to assist in determining whether it, or any part of it, may be withheld.

(c) The agency has the burden of proof to establish justification for nondisclosure.

Please take note of subsection (c) above. The burden of proof is on the agency to establish justification for nondisclosure.

With respect to information collected by Director Fukino for purposes of making her July 27, 2009 press release (and other public statements), the burden cannot be overcome since the statute demands that such information be made public. (Source: Natural Born Citizen: Leo Donofrio.)

Barack Obama and State of Hawaii on the ropes

The latest legal turn out of Hawaii leaves very little wiggle room for the state. On July 27th 2009 The Hawaii Department of Health in a press release declared that Barack Obama was a Natural Born Citizen. Researcher Justin Riggs on July 29th was informed by email that Hawaii Attorney General Mark Bennett reviewed and approved the Statement released by DoH Director Fukino. Attorney Leo Donofrio has been investigating the irregularities in the State of Hawaii at his blog Natural Born Citizen and has published a copy of the emails between Riggs and the Attorney General's office:

From: Justin Riggs [email address redacted]
Date: Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 12:03 PM
To: …janice.okubo@doh.hawaii.gov, [redacted other recipient]

…Ms. Okubo,
I am currently a masters degree candidate at …
The reason that I am contacting your organizations is that you are, as far as I can tell from my research, the only two groups that have openly stated that President Obama is a natural born citizen (one of the Article II, Section I qualifications for being President). I would like to document how you came to that conclusion: i.e. what the criteria is for your organization, what evidence the candidate provides, etc.
I thank you for your time, and look forward to receiving a response in the near future.
Sincerely,
Justin W. Riggs


Janice Okubo responded later that day:

From: Okubo, Janice S..
Date: Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 12:20 PM
To: Justin Riggs [email address redacted]…
Aloha Justin,
The statement was reviewed and approved by our Attorney General Mark Bennett. I am unable to provide further comment.
Janice Okubo
Communications Office
Hawaii State Department of Health…

According to law, the State of Hawaii must now disclose how it came to the decision that is found in Director Fukino’s July 27th Press Release that was approved by the State’s Attorney General. Haw. Rev. Stat. 28-4 states very clearly that formal opinions of the Attorney General must be made public. Further, the Hawaiian Office of Information Practices in 1991 formally set out the requirements that informal opinions of the AG must also be made available for public inspection. According to Donofrio, under the Uniform Rules of Evidence (Rule 510): “when the conclusions of an informal Attorney General opinion are made public by the agency/client, then the accompanying record of that opinion must also be disclosed to the public:”

The State of Hawaii declared that Obama was a Natural Born Citizen and that this disclosure was approved by the Attorney General of the State. The State of Hawaii must now release any and all communications and documentation that led it to making this determination. Because Janice Okubo on July 29th revealed that the decision was approved by the State’s Attorney General, and the state made its Natural Born Citizen statement, the state is now required by law to disclose how it reached that conclusion. As Donofrio explains, there can be no secret law. The State of Hawaii cannot simply make a statement with legal weight, and then when asked to provide how it reached that decision, simply say: ‘You just have to trust us on that’. They must release any and all information that led them to make their public declarations.

On October 5th, Donofrio wrote to the office of the Attorney General, contacting Jill Nagamine:

Subject: Request for AG Opinion letter
Date: Monday, October 5, 2009 8:34 PM
From:”Leo Donofrio” [email redacted]
To: Jill.T.Nagamine@hawaii.gov

Dear Ms. Nagamine,
The following request for Government records is made pursuant to the UIPA.
I request a copy (or access to a copy) of the Attorney General Opinion Letter the Attorney General provided to Department of Health Director Fukino which reviewed and approved her July 27, 2009 statement/press release about President Barack Obama wherein it was stated that he is a “natural-born American citizen.”
I request the opinion letter referenced above whether it was prepared as a formal Opinion Letter under Haw. Rev. Stat. 28-3 (and/or any other authority) or as an informal letter if prepared under Haw. Rev. Stat. 28-4 (and/or any other authority).

Please have your response conform to the OIP administrative rules.

A few hours later he received the following response:

Subject: Re Request for Ag Opinion letter
From: “Jill.T.Nagamine@hawaii.gov”
To: “Leo Donofrio” [email redacted]

Dear Mr. Donofrio:
No formal (emphasis added) attorney general opinion was generated relating to the July 27, 2009 public statement made by Chiyome L. Fukino, M.D. Any other legal advice rendered to our clients is privileged communication. We have nothing to release based on your request.

Very truly yours,
Jill T. Nagamine
Deputy Attorney General State of Hawaii

With all due respect to Ms Nagamine, this response is disingenuous in the extreme. First, Mr. Donofrio asked for all formal and informal communications. Under the law, the state has to release this information once any part of the resulting decisions are publically released, which happened on July 27th with Director Fukino’s Press Release, and again on July 29th When Janice Okubo informed Mr. Riggs that the Attorney General approved the statement. Second, Ms Nagamine’s response states that the informal communications are attorney client privilege, where none exists. (SEE: Leo Donofrio analysis at Natural Born Citizen: Hawaii Attorney General Invokes Attorney Client Privilege Concerning DoH “Natural-Born Citizen” Press Release of July 27, 2009..)

According to OIP Opinion letter 91-23, the conclusions of an informal Attorney General opinion made public by the agency or client (The Department of Health) the accompanying record of that opinion must be made public.

A client cannot voluntarily and selectively disclose those portions of a communication between the client and the client’s attorney without forfeiting the right to keep other portions of the communication on the same subject matter privileged.

The privilege may be said to be waived when the client relinquishes its protection. The waiver of this privilege follows as a consequence from any conduct by the client that would make it unfair for the client thereafter to assert the privilege. See generally, Marcus, The Perils of Privilege: Waiver and the Litigator, 84 Mich. L. Rev. 1065 (1986)

Similarly, under Rule 510 of the Uniform Rules of Evidence, the holder of a privilege waives it if the privilege holder consents to the disclosure of “any significant part of the privileged matter.”

The response of Ms Nagamine is very clearly not addressing the informal communications between Director Fukino and the Attorney General. By law, the public has the right to see any communications between these two parties once the client, in this case the Department of Health, publically releases the conclusions reached through those communications.

Donofrio is currently filing an appeal with the OIP, and the Judiciary as well. Because of the nature of the law involved, Donofrio will get that judicial review in an expedited manner.

The State of Hawaii will soon be forced to reveal the information it used to declare Barack Obama a Natural Born citizen. This will be very interesting, considering Obama’s Father was a British Citizen. therefore Barack Obama Jr is also a British Citizen, and was at birth by the very nature of his parentage. Barack Obama, by legal definitions going back to the 1600’s is not, was not, and never has been a Natural Born Citizen. It does not matter where Barack Obama was born; he was a dual American/British/Kenyan citizen. He could have been born on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. itself, and it would not matter. The basic fact of Barack Obama’s parentage remains the same. A Dual Citizen cannot ever be a Natural Born Citizen. There is absolutely no doubt.

There is an Usurper in the White House, and his name is Barack Obama. He and those who aided him in this usurpation, including the DNC are guilty of Treason to the United States. Every law that has been passed, every treaty signed, every order issued to the military has zero legal weight. This leads to a singularly terrifying reality that must be dealt with. The United States does not have a constitutional government.

This is the reason the Democrats in Congress are pushing things through as fast as they possibly can, without reading and in the case of the Senate even writing the legislation they are voting on. Once it becomes public knowledge what the Democrats and the DNC have done in their fraud upon America with Barack Obama, they will not be able to get anything done. Rightly so.

This is a scandal and cover-up 100 times the size of Watergate. This time, it won’t be just a President resigning in disgrace, it will also be the DNC Leadership who will be under the criminal investigation microscope for the cover-up, and it is a scrutiny they cannot withstand.

This is the reason Barack Obama is doing everything he can to keep people focused on the irrelevant issue of his birth certificate. He would rather people be thinking about where he was born rather than the citizenship that was conferred upon him by his British father.

The smoke and mirrors have cleared. This is no longer a partisan issue, partisan issues are reserved for constitutional governments, which we do not have. There is only those who understand the peril we are in, and those who do not, and we are all Americans.

Now, what are we going to do about it? (Source: Examiner.)

---

Is the COLB on Obama's "Fight the Smears" site a forgery?

MAYBE -- Certified FORENSIC Experts Need to Examine Original COLB. When the COLB image on the Obama website appeared, there were instant claims that the COLB was a forgery. One on-line "expert" Tech Dude produced an impressive and UNINTELLIGIBLE mess of comparative photos and then disappeared. The individual's resume was most impressive -- and was real. Only problem was that it didn't belong to him. Unfortunately, Philip Berg in his Pennsylvania case included this person in his documentation and severely weakened his case. The other "experts" are from Berg's statements but were only internet references and not mentioned again.


COLB show by FactCheck.org with raised seal

There is one who published his findings on the web in mid-November. It too was immediately attacked as a fraud as well. It was by Ron Polarik, PhD, at Free Republic: Polarik's final report: Obama's 'Born' Conspiracy Forged images, phony photos, and felony fraud. He admits that the other fraudulent individuals would reflect on his results -- and that his report would be viewed with suspicion. Polarik claims he has a PhD in Instructional Media with expertise in computer graphics and peripherals. The report was supposedly the culmination of over four months of "intensive, empirical research whose sole purpose has been to determine if the images and photographs posted on the Internet are true reproductions of a genuine document purported to be Obama's original birth certificate."

In the report, he claims that the forgery of the birth certificate photos and that their manufacture involved a conspiracy -- not just one person involved. He claims that the FactCheck.org substantiated the claims on the documents authenticity but got tripped up by its own documents. He claims that the document used by FactCheck.org had a fake seal of the Hawaii Department of Health that was photoshopped onto the image published on the web. He states, "To put it bluntly, the Factcheck photos have been "Frankensteined," just as the Factcheck scan image was cobbled together with the parts of different COLBs. The use of the term, "document" is simply for expediency sake, as no, single "real" document was used for these photos or for the scan image."


(L) Obama Hawaii COLB Certificate that does NOT contain hospital information (R) 1963 Hawaii Birth Certificate with pertinent information

VIDEO: Active X required: Claim that Certification of Live Birth from Hawaii altered with Photoshop

The report is very lengthy and detailed. It is highly recommended that one check it out for yourself and make up your own mind. However, until a credentialled authority on forged documents makes a statement all of this is inadmissible as evidence. Polarik has provided a sworn affidavit dealing with his credentials. He is being used by Philip Berg as his "expert" in hs suit's claims that the document is a forgery. He also claims he has received threats from Obama supporters.

The Summary: The Certification of Live Birth documents posted on Mr. Obama's website www.fightthesmears.com, Daily Kos (a pro-Obama blog) and factcheck.org, (a pro-Obama political research group), were found to be altered and forged. (Source: WND.) (SITE NOTE: "Fight the Smears" (http://fightthesmears.com) was removed from the internet on July 2009 along with the copy of the disputed COLB. It is thought to be in reaction to the nationwide billboard campaign in May 2009 by World Net Daily asking "Wheres the Birth Certificate?")

• The problem of the pixels: When you have a green patterned document such as this, there should be a lot of green pixels from the background showing up between the letters that appear on the certification. But in this case, instead of green pixels, there are white and grey pixels between the letters, which result when you replace existing text with other text.
  
  
• There is no second fold line. The pictures show two folds – necessary to fit any COLB into an envelope for mailing, but the document itself shows only one fold. This is another indication of document alteration.
  
  
• There's a blurred border. The border has a lower resolution than the rest of the document, which is another indication that it has been altered.
  
  
• The border is one that is used in 2007 COLBs. As a security measure, Hawaii changes their borders every year. This is when the Obama campaign claims the certificate was obtained. That is fine except for the problem that …
  
  
• The seal and signature stamp are from a 2008 COLB. As revealed by a process called edging, the Hawaiian seal and signature stamp on the back of the document are revealed to be from the wrong year!
  
  

VIDEO: Active X required. Polarik explains how forgery was done (Nov 2008)

Forensic Expert Sandra Lines Corroborates Polarik's Findings Forensic document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines corroborated the analysis done by Ron Polarik of the so called Obama COLB. This was part of the Keyes v. Lingle, where the Constitution Party and Dr. Amb. Alan Keyes were petitioning against Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle, Chief Elections Officer Kevin B. Cronin, and various other Defendants as a means of holding an official accountable for determining Barack Hussein Obama's eligibility. In her affidavit she states that Polarik did not lend his name to the suit because of death threats.

She provided the affidavit as an "expert witness" in the Keyes v. Lingle suit in Hawaii. Her Curriculum Vitae is part of the court document pdf file at Affidavit of Sandra Lines on Evidence of COLB.

“2. I have reviewed the attached affidavit posted on the internet from “Ron Polarik,” [PDF] who has declined to provide his name because of a number of death threats he has received. After my review and based on my years of experience, I can state with certainty that the COLB presented on the internet by the various groups, which include the “Daily Kos,” the Obama Campaign, “Factcheck.org” and others cannot be relied upon as genuine. Mr. Polarik raises issues concerning the COLB that I can affirm. Software such as Adobe Photoshop can produce complete images or alter images that appear to be genuine; therefore, any image offered on the internet cannot be relied upon as being a copy of the authentic document.

3. Upon a cursory inspection of the internet COLB, one aspect of the image that is clearly questionable is the obliteration of the Certificate No. That number is a tracking number that would allow anyone to ask the question, “Does this number refer to the Certification of Live Birth for the child Barack Hussein Obama II?” It would not reveal any further personal information; therefore, there would be no justifiable reason for oliterating it.

4. In my experience as a forensic document examiner, if an original of any document exists, that is the document that must be examined to obtain a definitive finding of genuineness or non-genuineness. In this case, examination of the vault birth certificate for President-Elect Obama would lay this issue to rest once and for all.”

(SITE NOTE: Obama is a "native born citizen" if he was born on US soil -- which any Chinese national mother who bears her child on US soil knows as it becomes her "anchor baby." And Obama MAY be a "naturalized citizen" because he was adopted in Indonesia by Lolo Soetoro and returned to the US. This, of course, is based upon the assumption that Obama did in fact not take any action or oath to a foreign country -- such as Indonesia or Kenya. To complicate matters, he was born a British (Kenyan) citizen and upon adoption by Lolo Soetoro acquired Indonesian citizenship. However, Obama claims he allowed the Kenyan citizenship to lapse in 1982 and the Indonesian citizenship was automatically revoked in 1975 after Obama remained in Hawaii for five years without announcing his intentions to return. Regardless, the Constitution states that he is NOT a "natural born citizen" because at birth as a dual citizen he owed allegiance to a foreign country.)

4. December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986

If, at the time of your birth, both your parents were U.S. citizens and at least one had a prior residence in the United States, you automatically acquired U.S. citizenship with no conditions for retaining it.

If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16. There are no conditions placed on retaining this type of citizenship. If your one U.S. citizen parent is your father and you were born outside of marriage, the same rules apply if your father legally legitimated you before your 21st birthday and you were unmarried at the time. If legitimation occurred after November 14, 1986, your father must have established paternity prior to your 18th birthday, either by acknowledgment or by court order, and must have stated in writing that he would support you financially until your 18th birthday. (Source: FindLaw.com.)

5. November 14, 1986 to Present

If at the time of your birth, both your parents were U.S. citizens, and at least one had a prior residence in the United States, you automatically acquired U.S. citizenship with no conditions for retaining it.

If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least five years, at least two of which must have been after the age of 14. You don't need to do anything special to keep this type of citizenship. If your one U.S. citizen parent is your father and you were born outside of marriage, the same rules apply if your father established paternity prior to your 18th birthday, either by acknowledgment or by court order, and stated in writing that he would support you financially until your 18th birthday. (Source: FindLaw.com.)

The only way Obama can satisfactorily respond is to release his suposed Hawaiian birth certificate. If he has it, why hasn't he released it? If he does release it, game over. So why drag this out on technical grounds? It doesn't make sense. If this video gets widely viewed and discussed, Obama's support will crumble in the face of his continued stonewalling. Why doesn't he authorize the state of Hawaii to provide birth certificate to the court? I am grateful for the efforts of the people who put this op together. It is brilliantly timed. I do know that there are one or more smart Democrats who haven't forgiven Obama and who don't want to see him elected. They know how to design and implement really effective plans to get things done. They might even want to get Obama thrown off the ballot and replaced by the second place finisher before Election Day. Or, if the Democratic Party stonewalls and the court delays, pick up the pieces. (Source: American Thinker.)

1758

Also quoted is an excerpt from "The Laws of Nations" by Emmerich de Vattel, a book published in 1758, which Justice Scalia has used to define other terms in the Constitution:

"§ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country."

1765

William Blackstone in Commentaries on the Laws of England is quoted as saying:

"natural allegiance is such as is due from all men born within the king's dominions immediately upon their birth. For immediately upon their birth, they are under the king's protection... Natural allegiance is therefore a debt of gratitude; which cannot be forfeited, cancelled, or altered, by any change of time place, or circumstance... For it is a principle of universal law, that the natural-born subject of one prince cannot by any act of his own, no, not by swearing allegiance to another, put off or discharge his natural allegiance of the former:..."

1787

John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, wrote to George Washington on July 25th:

"Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American Army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen."

1788

June 21, the United States Constitution was ratified and it spells out clearly the qualifications for the office of President in Article 2, Section 1, clause 5:

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 States.

1866

Representative John Bingham of Ohio, who is considered by many the "Father of the Fourteenth Amendment", is quoted in Donofrio's essay as saying the following:

"[I] find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen…[6]"

Bingham is also quoted saying in the Spring of 1868 some serious warnings:

"May God forbid that the future historian shall record of this day's proceedings, that by reason of the failure of the legislative power of the people to triumph over the usurpations of an apostate President, the fabric of American empire fell and perished from the earth!...I ask you to consider that we stand this day pleading for the violated majesty of the law, by the graves of half a million of martyred hero-patriots who made death beautiful by the sacrifice of themselves for their country, the Constitution and the laws, and who, by their sublime example, have taught us all to obey the law; that none are above the law..."

1898

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, March 28, 1898 Reveals the following:

"Nevertheless, Congress has persisted from 1795 in rejecting the English rule and in requiring the alien who would become a citizen of the United States, in taking on himself the ties binding him to our Government, to affirmatively sever the ties that bound him to any other." "It is beyond dispute that the most vital constituent of the English common law rule has always been rejected in respect of citizenship of the United States."

"Considering the circumstances surrounding the framing of the Constitution, I submit that it is unreasonable to conclude that "natural-born citizen" applied to everybody born within the geographical tract known as the United States, irrespective of circumstances, and that the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country, whether of royal parentage or not, or whether of the Mongolian, Malay or other race, were eligible to the Presidency, while children of our citizens, born abroad, were not."

"Greisser was born in the State of Ohio in 1867, his father being a German subject and domiciled in Germany, to which country the child returned. After quoting the act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment, Mr. Secretary Bayard said:

Richard Greisser was no doubt born in the United States, but he was on his birth "subject to a foreign power," and "not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States." He was not, therefore, under the statute and the Constitution a citizen of the United States by birth, and it is not pretended that he has any other title to citizenship."

"And it was to prevent the acquisition of citizenship by the children of such aliens merely by birth within the geographical limits of the United States that the words were inserted.

Two months after the statute was enacted, on June 16, 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed, and declared ratified July 28, 1868. The first clause of the first section reads:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

The act was passed and the amendment proposed by the same Congress, and it is not open to reasonable doubt that the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the amendment were used as synonymous with the words "and not subject to any foreign power" of the act."

1939

Perkins v Elg, 307 U.S. 325,328 (1939) differentiates between a US citizen and a natural born citizen. Ms. Elg, was born in Brooklyn, NY to an American mother and a Swedish father was a US citizen, but not a natural born citizen.

2008

The Obama Campaign has already admitted that Obama was subject to British Law at birth. This is not a conspiracy. This is not an allegation. This is a FACT. You can see it for yourself at FightTheSmears, Obama's website. (SITE NOTE: "Fight the Smears" (http://fightthesmears.com) was removed from the internet on July 2009 along with the copy of the disputed COLB. It is thought to be in reaction to the nationwide billboard campaign in May 2009 by World Net Daily asking "Wheres the Birth Certificate?") Or you can read it right here:

“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.

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.”

2008

Author, P.A. Madison, from The Federalist Blog examined the issue and has been quoted as saying the following:

“One universal point most all early publicists agreed on was natural-born citizen must mean one who is a citizen by no act of law. If a person owes their citizenship to some act of law (naturalization for example) they cannot be considered a natural-born citizen. This leads us to defining natural-born citizen under the laws of nature, or jus naturale, the laws the founders recognized and embraced. Under the laws of nature, every child born requires no act of law to establish the fact the child inherits through nature his/her father’s citizenship as well as his name (or even his property) through birth. This law of nature is also recognized by law of nations.

2008

Here's a real good contemporary source! Wiki

"It is generally agreed that these constitutional provisions mean anyone born on American soil to parents who are U.S. citizens is a “natural born citizen” eligible to someday become president or vice-president..."

2008

Leo Donofrio states:

“Don’t be distracted by the birth certificate and Indonesia issues. They are irrelevant to Senator Obama’s ineligibility to be President. Since Barack Obama’s father was a Citizen of Kenya and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of Senator Obama’s birth, then Senator Obama was a British Citizen “at birth”, just like the Framers of the Constitution, and therefore, even if he were to produce an original birth certificate proving he were born on US soil, he still wouldn’t be eligible to be President.”

The Framers of the Constitution, at the time of their birth, were also British Citizens and that's why the Framers declared that, while they were Citizens of the United States, they themselves were not "natural born Citizens". Hence their inclusion of the grandfather clause in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution:

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;

The Framers wanted to make themselves eligible to be President, but they didn't want future generations to be Governed by a Commander In Chief who had split loyalty to another Country. The Framers were comfortable making an exception for themselves. They did, after all, create the Constitution. But they were not comfortable with the possibility of future generations of Presidents being born under the jurisdiction of Foreign Powers, especially Great Britain and its monarchy, who the Framers and Colonists fought so hard in the American Revolution to be free of.

The Framers declared themselves not eligible to be President as "natural born Citizens", so they wrote the grandfather clause in for the limited exception of allowing themselves to be eligible to the Presidency in the early formative years of our infant nation.

But nobody alive today can claim eligibility to be President under the grandfather clause since nobody alive today was a citizen of the US at the time the Constitution was adopted. The Framers distinguished between "natural born Citizens" and all other "Citizens". And that's why it's important to note the 14th Amendment only confers the title of "Citizen", not "natural born Citizen". The Framers were Citizens, but they weren't natural born Citizens. They put the stigma of not being natural born Citizens on themselves in the Constitution and they are the ones who wrote the Document.

Since the the Framers didn't consider themselves to have been "natural born Citizens" due to their having been subject to British jurisdiction at their birth, then Senator Obama, having also been subject to British jurisdiction at the time of his birth, also cannot be considered a "natural born Citizen" of the United States. (Source: Natural Born Citizen.)

2008

The Lightfoot lawsuit in CA states the obvious:

“This letter shows that the meaning of natural born citizen, is one without allegiance to any foreign powers, not subject to any foreign jurisdiction at birth.”

After the US Constitution was written, further clarifications can be found

“All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.”

1866, Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised

“every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”

Rep. Bingham on Section 1992 (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866)) "Bingham subscribed to the same view as most everyone in Congress at the time that in order to be born a citizen of the United States one must be born within the allegiance of the Nation. Bingham had explained that to be born within the allegiance of the United States the parents, or more precisely, the father, must not owe allegiance to some other foreign sovereignty (remember the U.S. abandoned England's "natural allegiance" doctrine). This of course, explains why emphasis of not owing allegiance to anyone else was the affect of being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States."

"“This is MoniQue from moniquemonicat blog. I sent requests to 50+ Secretary of State offices through the Public Records Act (PRA) requesting Obama’s original filing papers for each state and some other docs too. Attached is one I just got back from THE SOS IN ARIZONA. A NOTARIZED AND SIGNED BY Obama SWEARING AND CERTIFYING HE IS A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN. HIS SIGNATURE IS ON THIS DOCUMENT TESTIFYING HE IS “A NATURAL BORN U.S. CITIZEN.” I think this document is important because it is HIS word [which I believe to be a lie] that he is a natural born us citizen. He says “i do solemnly swear he is a natural u.s. born citizen” So this would be one document to urge others to request from the SOS Public Records Act (not the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) because the FOIA is FEDERAL so that is why a lot of the SOS would not provide this stuff when I first submitted my requests to them."

Affidavit from Arizona Secretary of State

It should be noted that many states simply have a registration fee OR a petition requirement to place someone on the ballot. See the pdf file for 2008 South Carolina Democratic Party filing statement signed by Obama at Obama SC Democratic Filing Application. Obama simply paid a $2500 filing fee, the Democratic Party accepted his candidacy and the state added him to the ballot. Remember that many states simply accept the Party nomination and do not vet the Presidential candidate -- claiming that the Congress has not delegated the responsibility to the States.

Before the election, most of the Democratic commentary on this question was that this was another Swift Boat attack as led on John Kerry in 2004 without substance -- and that Obama was going to win -- so "get over it." But it wouldn't go away. Leo Donofrio's case made it to the Supreme Court docket and was to be heard in conference on 5 Dec. It conceded that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii as he claims, but argued "that Mr. Obama is not a 'natural born citizen,' as Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution requires" because his father was a Kenyan citizen, "and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of" Obama's birth, and therefore was a British citizen. The hope was for it to be heard by the Supreme Court.

Must Obama Prove He's a Natural-Born Citizen? The flimsy rules on eligibility standards for presidential candidates.

A federal judge in Pennsylvania this week threw out a lawsuit that challenged Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidency by claiming he's not a U.S. citizen. A California judge tossed out a similar lawsuit in September, after a member of the state's American Independent Party claimed John McCain was not a "natural-born citizen."

Do presidential candidates have to prove their eligibility for office before they get on the ballot?

No. Ballot access rules vary by state, but in general, you don't have to prove eligibility unless someone challenges it. Article II of the U.S. Constitution requires that a presidential candidate be a "natural born citizen"—in other words, a citizen born in this country or, according to traditional interpretation, born to U.S. citizens overseas (as opposed to a naturalized citizen born overseas).* You also have to be at least 35 and have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years. But none of the 50 states asks for birth certificates or long-term residency documents to prove that a candidate qualifies for a spot on the ballot. (Obama released a copy of his birth certificate, anyway.)

Third-party candidates, however, do have to show some ID. In Maryland, anyone who wants to get on the presidential primary ballot but isn't "generally recognized" (as vaguely defined by the state) has to sign a Certificate of Candidacy affirming, "I meet the qualification for the above mentioned office as set forth in applicable law." Illinois, too, requires independent candidates to affirm that they are "legally qualified … to hold such office." Violation is considered perjury. (If you really want to burnish your cred, Illinois has an optional loyalty oath.)

Eligibility requirements are different for state and local offices. Candidates for the House of Representatives must be at least 25 years old. Senators have to be 30. Residency requirements vary: In Virginia, congressmen have to live in their district; in California, they don't. Most states require candidates to affirm that they meet the requirements. Virginia, for example, asks House candidates to swear that they're 25, they live in their district, they've never been convicted of a felony, and they've been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years.

How do you challenge a candidate's eligibility for president or any other office? You have two options: report them to your secretary of state or take them to court. Some Secretary of State offices have investigation units that handle fraud, and investigations can lead to felony charges. Taking candidates to court is trickier. For one thing, you need "standing"—proof that the candidate's actions harm you. A federal judge ruled recently that ordinary citizens don't qualify for standing, and Congress would have to pass a law to change that. Political parties, on the other hand, might have a better chance in court, since they would clearly get hurt if an ineligible opponent won. (SEE NY Times (29 Oct 2008).)

In late Oct, a blogger provided the answer: "I call your attention to the 20th Amendment, Section 3 which is the governing law. It provides for the possibility that a President elect (or Vice President elect) may not be able during the time after election by the Electoral College and before Inauguration to demonstrate that he is qualified (natural born citizen, age 35+, residence in US 14+ yrs) and thus would need to be replaced before Inauguration. "If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified."

The following is a more detailed discussion of the Natural-Born Citizen by P.A. Madison on Federalist in Nov 2008.

Defining Natural-Born Citizen

By P.A. Madison on November 18, 2008

“The common law of England is not the common law of these States.” —George Mason

UPDATED 12/24/08

What might the phrase “natural-born citizen” of the United States imply under the U.S. Constitution? The phrase has always been obscure due to the lack of any single authoritative source to confer in order to understand the condition of citizenship the phrase recognizes. Learning what the phrase might have meant following the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires detective work. As with all detective work, eliminating the usual suspects from the beginning goes a long way in quickly solving a case.

What Natural-Born Citizen Could Not Mean

Could a natural-born citizen simply mean citizenship due to place of birth?

Unlikely because we know one can be native born and yet not a native born citizen of this country prior to the year 1866. There were even disputes whether anyone born within the District of Columbia or in the territories were born citizens of the United States (they were referred to as “inhabitants” instead.) National Government could make no “territorial allegiance” demands within the several States because as Madison explained it, the “powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

Jurisdiction over citizenship via birth within the several States was part of the “ordinary course of affairs” of the States that only local laws could affect. Early acts of Naturalization recognized the individual State Legislatures as the only authority who could make anyone a citizen of a State. Framer James Wilson said, “a citizen of the United States is he, who is a citizen of at least some one state in the Union.” These citizens of each State were united together through Article IV, Sec. II of the U.S. Constitution, and thus, no act of Congress was required to make citizens of the individual States citizens of the United States.

Prior to the Revolutionary War place of birth within the dominions of the crown was the principle criterion for establishing perpetual allegiance to the crown in this country. After independence, this maxim was only recognized as far as individual States were willing to recognize it. The State of Virginia in 1777 moved to recognize parentage (citizenship of father) in determining allegiance and citizenship. States that were slow in enacting laws controlling birth and citizenship forced the courts to adjudicate citizenship disputes under common law rules.

Congress was vested only with the power to make uniform rules of naturalization in order to remove alienage from those who were already born abroad (outside of the States) who had immigrated to any one of the individual States. The best Congress could do is declare children born abroad to fathers who were already a citizen of some State to be a citizen themselves. In other words, naturalization only provides for the removal of alienage and not for the creation of citizens within individual States.

Additionally, if the framers merely intended for birth alone on U.S. soil, or understood birth alone bestowing unconditional citizenship to anyone, then all would had been necessary was to say the President shall be “native born.”

Could a natural-born citizen perhaps be synonymous with the British term “natural-born subject”?

It is very doubtful the framers adopted the doctrine found under the old English doctrine of “natural-born subject.” The British doctrine allowed for double allegiances, something the founders considered improper.

Framer Rufus King said allegiance to the United States depended on whether a person is a “member of the body politic.” King says no nation should adopt or naturalize a person of another society without the consent of that person. The reason? Because “he ought not silently to be embarrassed with a double allegiance.”

The powers of the general government were limited and defined, preventing Congress from exercising the same kind of sovereignty that Britain had over its claimed dominions within established States of the Union.

Under the old English common law doctrine of natural-born subject, birth itself was an act of naturalization that required no prior consent or demanded allegiance to the nation in advance. Furthermore, birth was viewed as enjoining a “perpetual allegiance” upon all that could never be severed or altered by any change of time or act of anyone. England’s “perpetual allegiance” due from birth was extremely unpopular in this country; often referred to as absurd barbarism, or simply perpetual nonsense. America went to war with England over the doctrine behind “natural-born subject” in June of 1812.

Because Britain considered all who were born within the dominions of the crown to be its natural-born subjects even after becoming naturalized citizens of the United States, led to British vessels blockading American ports. Under the British blockade, every American ship entering or leaving was boarded by soldiers in search of British born subjects. At least 6,000 American citizens who were found to be British natural-born subjects were impressed into military service on behalf of the British Empire, and thus, the reason we went to war.

Fourteenth Amendment

The adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment obviously affects how we view natural-born citizens because for the first time there is a national rule of who may by birth be a citizen of the United States. Who may be born citizens of the States is conditional upon being born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. The legislative definition of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was defined as “Not owing allegiance to anybody else.”

This national rule prevents us from interpreting natural-born citizen under common law rules because it eliminates the possibility of a child being born with more than one allegiance.

The primary author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob M. Howard, said the “word jurisdiction, as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, coextensive in all respects with the constitutional power of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.”

United States Attorney General, George Williams, whom was a U.S. Senator aligned with Radical Republicans during the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866, ruled in 1873 the word “jurisdiction” under the Fourteenth Amendment “must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment.” He added, “Political and military rights and duties” do not pertain to anyone else. Essentially then, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means the same jurisdiction the United States exercises over its own citizens, i.e., only citizens of the United States come within its operation since citizens of the United States do not owe allegiance to some other nation at the same time they do the United States. This makes a great deal of sense for the time because there was a great deal of controversy over conflicts arising from double allegiances. In fact, Congress issued a joint congressional report on June 22, 1874 that said the “United States have not recognized a double allegiance.”

Additionally, how did persons become both citizens and “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States through naturalization? By renouncing all prior allegiances to other nations and by declaring their allegiance to this one in advance of course. Why would “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” be any different with persons born since this jurisdiction equally applies to all who are either born or naturalized? In other words, the words do not exempt persons born from the same allegiance requirements of persons naturalized.

Because “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” requires not owing allegiance to any other nation, and because the nation does not recognize double allegiances that can be created at common law, narrows the possibilities to what “natural-born citizen” can mean.

Natural-Born Citizen Defined

One universal point most all early publicists agreed on was natural-born citizen must mean one who is a citizen by no act of law. If a person owes their citizenship to some act of law (naturalization for example), they cannot be considered a natural-born citizen. This leads us to defining natural-born citizen under the laws of nature - laws the founders recognized and embraced.

Under the laws of nature, every child born requires no act of law to establish the fact the child inherits through nature his/her father’s citizenship as well as his name (or even his property) through birth. This law of nature is also recognized by law of nations. Sen. Howard said the citizenship clause under the Fourteenth Amendment was by virtue of “natural law and national law.” The first Naturalization Act passed by Congress recognized “natural-born citizens” to be those born beyond the States to resident fathers who were already established citizens of the United States.

The advantages of Natural Law is competing allegiances between nations are avoided, or at least with those nations whose custom is to not make citizens of other countries citizens without their consent. Any alternations or conflicts due to a child’s natural citizenship are strictly a creature of local municipal law. In the year 1866, the United States for the first time adopted a local municipal law under Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes that read: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.”

Rep. Bingham commenting on Section 1992 said it means “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.” (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))

Bingham subscribed to the same view as most everyone in Congress at the time that in order to be born a citizen of the United States one must be born within the allegiance of the Nation. Bingham had explained that to be born within the allegiance of the United States the parents, or more precisely, the father, must not owe allegiance to some other foreign sovereignty (remember the U.S. abandoned England’s “natural allegiance” doctrine). This of course, explains why emphasis of not owing allegiance to anyone else was the affect of being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

Secretary of State Bayard ruled under Section 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes in 1885 that although Richard Greisser was born in the United States, his father at the time of his birth was a subject of Germany, and thus, Richard Greisser could not be a citizen of the United States. Furthermore, it was held his father was not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The constitutional requirement for the President of the United States to be a natural-born citizen had one purpose according to St. George Tucker:

That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to he dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. … The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora’s Box.

Additionally, Charles Pinckney in 1800 said the presidential eligibility clause was designed “to insure … attachment to the country.”

What better way to insure attachment to the country then to require the President to have inherited his American citizenship through his American father and not through a foreign father. Any child can be born anywhere in the country and removed by their father to be raised in his native country. The risks would be for the child to return in later life to reside in this country bringing with him foreign influences and intrigues.

Therefore, we can say with confidence that a natural-born citizen of the United States means those persons born whose father the United States already has an established jurisdiction over, i.e., born to father’s who are themselves citizens of the United States. A person who had been born under a double allegiance cannot be said to be a natural-born citizen of the United States because such status is not recognized (only in fiction of law). A child born to an American mother and alien father could be said to be a citizen of the United States by some affirmative act of law but never entitled to be a natural-born citizen because through laws of nature the child inherits the condition of their father.

UPDATE:

I came across this interesting speech by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Langdon Cheves, in February of 1814:

The children have a natural attachment to the society in which they are born: being obliged to acknowledge the protection it has granted to their fathers, they are obliged to it in a great measure for their birth and education. … We have just observed that they have a right to enter into the society of which their fathers were members. But every man born free, the son of a citizen, arrived at years of discretion, may examine whether it be convenient for him to join in the society for which he was destined by his birth.

Cheves is obviously drawing on the works of Emer de Vattel, Law of Nations. Not something you would expect from the Speaker of the House of a Nation that supposedly adopted England’s common law.

UPDATE II:

Rep. A. Smyth (VA), House of Representatives, December 1820:

When we apply the term “citizens” to the inhabitants of States, it means those who are members of the political community. The civil law determined the condition of the son by that of the father. A man whose father was not a citizen was allowed to be a perpetual inhabitant, but not a citizen, unless citizenship was conferred on him.

Savage v. Umphries (TX) 118 S. W. 893, 909:

As a man is a “citizen” of the country to which his father owes allegiance, it was incumbent on one alleging in an election contest that a voter was not a citizen of the United States to show that such voter’s father was not a citizen thereof during his son’s minority.

(Source: Federalist.)

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Obama Presidential Eligibility - An Introductory, DETAILED Primer

The following is a primer of the eligibility question that is at the heart of the firestorm brewing over the Obama Presidency. It is probably the most concise, yet substantive source of information on the topic I've seen to date.

The key point is that "natural born citizen" has been agreed to by all sides as NOT have been defined clearly either by the Congress or by the Federal courts. As a result, there is an ambiguous state where the Obama supporters state "a native-born citizen is the same as a natural-born citizen." The opposition of eligibility protestors state that "natural-born citizen" requires TWO U.S. citizens as parents AND being born on U.S. soil. This can only be resolved through the courts -- as the Congress has refused to touch this matter.

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Obama Presidential Eligibility - An Introductory Primer

Last revised: June 5, 2009

Abstract

Despite the mainstream news media's silence regarding this matter, an increasing number of Americans are concerned that Barack Obama might not be eligible, under the Constitution, to serve as President.

According to the U.S. Constitution, an individual born after 1787 cannot legally or legitimately serve as U.S. President unless he or she is a "natural born citizen" of the United States.

Among members of Congress and the mainstream news media, the consensus of opinion is that anyone born in the United States is a "natural born citizen". However, when we researched this issue a bit more carefully, we found that the consensus opinion is not consistent with American history.

In Minor v. Happersett (1874), the Supreme Court said that, if you were born in the United States and both of your parents were U.S. citizens at the time of your birth, you are, without doubt, a natural born citizen. In the same case, the Supreme Court also said that, if you were born in the United States and one of your parents was not a U.S. citizen when you were born, your natural born citizenship is in doubt. So far, the Supreme Court has not resolved this doubt because, until now, there has never been any need to do so.

With only two exceptions, every American President, who was born after 1787, was born in the United States, to parents who were both U.S. citizens. The two exceptions were Chester Arthur and Barack Obama. When Chester Arthur ran for office, the public did not know about his eligibility problem. Only recently did historians learn that, when Arthur was born, his father was not a U.S. citizen. The 2008 election was the first time in history that the United States knowingly elected a President who was born after 1787 and whose parents were not both U.S. citizens.

Barack Obama publicly admits that his father was not a U.S. citizen. According to Minor v. Happersett, there is unresolved doubt as to whether the child of a non-citizen parent is a natural born citizen. This doubt is not based on the imaginings of some tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists on the lunatic fringe of society. This doubt comes from what the Supreme Court has actually said, as well as a variety of other historical and legal sources which are presented and discussed here.

This Primer introduces and explains the Obama Eligibility Controversy, in question-and-answer format, for a non-technical general audience. We've double-checked the facts presented here, and we've cited the sources of each fact.

Questions and Answers

1. What is a "birther"?
2. What are the eligibility requirements for President?
3. Why do birthers think Barack Obama is not eligible to be President?
4. How is "natural born citizen" defined?
5. In a nutshell, what is the Obama eligibility controversy?
6. Does the birthers' viewpoint have any historical or legal merit?
7. What was the original purpose of the presidential "natural born citizen" requirement?
8. What is the difference between a "Constitutional" and a "statutory" natural born citizen?
9. Wouldn't the most recent modern-day statutory meaning of "natural born citizen" take precedence over the original Constitutional meaning?
10. If Obama is not a "Constitutional natural born citizen", so what? Why should anyone care?
11. Why has every birther lawsuit been dismissed?
12. What is a 14th Amendment natural born citizen?
13. In the 14th Amendment, what does "jurisdiction" mean?
14. Doesn't the Wong Kim Ark decision make Obama a "natural born citizen"?
15. Doesn't the Julia Lynch case show that Obama is a "natural born citizen"?
16. Could "natural born citizen" be based on the British Common Law principle of jus soli?
17. What's the "beef" with President Obama's birth certificate?
18. Didn't the State of Hawaii recently verify that President Obama was born in Hawaii?
19. Doesn't the mere existence of Barack Obama's original Hawaiian birth certificate prove that he was born in Hawaii?
20. Do birthers actually believe that President Obama was born in a foreign country?
21. If President Obama's birth certificate shows conclusively that he was born in Hawaii, would it end the eligibility controversy?
22. Where do we go from here?

1. What is a "birther"?

News commentators and Internet bloggers invented the word "birther" as a term of derision and contempt towards people who question Barack Obama's presidential eligibility. Ironically, many birthers accepted the label and adopted it as their own. See, for example, The Birthers Web Site.

In this paper, "birther" does not refer to any particular group or organization. Rather, it refers respectfully to people who think Barack Obama is not eligible to serve as U.S. President.

2. What are the eligibility requirements for President?

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution states:

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 States.

This means that, in modern times, you cannot legally or legitimately serve as President of the United States, unless you are:

• at least 35 years of age
• a resident of the United States for at least 14 years
• a natural born citizen.

Regarding the third requirement ("natural born citizen"), the Constitution made a special exception for people who were citizens when the Constitution was adopted. Such people did not need to be natural born citizens. Their pre-Constitution citizenship, by itself, was sufficient to meet the third requirement.

Today, this special exception is no longer applicable. No one alive today was a citizen when the Constitution was adopted. In modern times, if you wish to be President, it is not enough to be a U.S. citizen. You must be a natural born citizen in order to be "eligible to the Office of President".

3. Why do birthers think Barack Obama is not eligible to be President?

Birthers believe Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen and, for that reason alone, he is not eligible to serve as President. They say that, in order to be a natural born citizen, you must meet two requirements:

• You must be born in the United States; and
• Both of your parents must be U.S. citizens at the time of your birth.

According to birthers, it does not matter how your parents became U.S. citizens. They could have acquired citizenship at birth. They could have been immigrants who became citizens through naturalization. At one time in American history, a woman's citizenship was that of her husband. A woman became a U.S. citizen automatically when she married a man who was already a U.S. citizen. For you to be a natural born citizen, your parents had to be citizens at the time of your birth, but they did not have to be natural born citizens.

There is some question as to whether President Obama meets the first requirement. Unsubstantiated rumors suggest he might have been born in Kenya (Affidavit of Reverend Kweli Shuhubia, Affidavit of Bishop Ron McRae, and Interview with Kenyan Ambassador).

But far more importantly, Obama publicly admits he does not meet the second requirement. His father was a British subject who never became a U.S. citizen. (FactCheck.org: Does Barack Obama have Kenyan citizenship?)

At the time of this writing, to the best of our knowledge and belief, Barack Obama has referred to himself as a native born citizen but has never publicly claimed to be a "natural born citizen".

4. How is "natural born citizen" defined?

4.1 "Natural born citizen" is not defined in the Constitution or in any existing Federal law

The U.S. Constitution, and the Naturalization Acts of Massachusetts (1776-1790), use the term "natural born citizen" but do not define it.

So far, Congress has not passed any law that defines "natural born citizen". In 1790, Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, which extended the meaning of "natural born citizen" to include the foreign-born children of U.S.-citizen parents:

And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens (Naturalization Act of 1790)

Five years later, Congress repealed the 1790 Act and replaced it with the Naturalization Act of 1795. The wording of the 1795 Act was essentially the same as the 1790 Act, except that the term "natural born citizens" was deleted and replaced with "citizens".

Thereafter, Congress has passed laws that convey American citizenship to certain people at birth, but Congress never again passed any law that explicitly clarified, defined or extended the meaning of natural born citizenship. Senate Bill S.2128 was supposed to define "natural born citizen", but it was never enacted. The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee in 2004, where it has remained ever since. In 2008, the Senate passed Resolution 511 regarding Presidential candidate John McCain's natural born citizenship, but the resolution was nonbinding and had no legal effect.

4.2 A similar term, "natural-born Subject", appeared in British Common Law

In 1736, Matthew Bacon defined "natural-born Subject" as:

All those are natural-born Subjects whose Parents, at the Time of their Birth, were under the actual Obedience of our King, and whose Place of Birth was within his dominions. (Page 77 in this 724-page (48MB) PDF file: Matthew Bacon, A New Abridgement of the Law, Vol 1, 1736).

The "parental obedience" requirement does not appear in later definitions of "natural-born Subject".

In 1765, William Blackstone defined "natural-born Subject" as anyone born in British territory, regardless of the parents' allegiance or citizenship. A child born in England, for example, was a natural-born subject, even if the child's parents were aliens:

The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. (Blackstone, Commentaries, 1765).

Sir Alexander Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice of England, leaves little doubt that, under British Common Law, a "natural-born Subject" was someone born in British territory, regardless of parental nationality:

By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled or merely temporarily sojourning, in the country, was an English subject, save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality. (Alexander Cockburn, Nationality, 1869, page 7).

When the Constitution was written, British natural-born Subject status was determined by birthplace alone. If you were born in British territory, you were automatically a British natural-born Subject. The nationality or citizenship of your parents didn't matter.

But did the same principle also apply to natural born citizen? If natural born Subject status was determined by birthplace alone, was natural born citizen status also determined by birthplace alone, without regard to parental citizenship?

4.3 "Natural born citizen" appeared in English-language Literature

In 1774, Patsall translated Institutio Oratoria from Latin to English. Patsall's work might be the earliest English-language writing in which the term natural born citizen appears (What is a Natural Born Citizen of the United States?).

Institutio Oratoria is a twelve-volume classic written by Marcus Fabius Quintilianus during the first century AD. It contains this Latin sentence:

Quare, si fieri, potest et verba omnia et vox huius alumnum urbis oleant, ut oratio Romana plane videatur, non civitate donata. (Quintilianus, Institutio Oratoria, Book 1, Chapter VIII)

Patsall translated this sentence as:

Therefore, if possible, every word and the very tone of voice, should bespeak the natural born citizen of Rome, that the language may be purely Roman, and not so by a right different from birth and education.

Other English translations of Institutio Oratoria, such as Guthrie's translation in 1756, use "native" instead of "natural born citizen".

In Patsall's work, natural born citizen is an English rendering of alumnum urbis.

• Alumnum means "nourished, brought up; reared/fostered by; native, brought up locally" (Latin-English Dictionary 1.97FC). It refers to a "child not born of the family, but brought up and educated as one's own child" (Meaning of Alumni).

• Urbis means "city".

Thus alumnum urbis -- the "natives" or "natural born citizens" of a city -- are those who were not merely born in the city, but were raised or parented by the city -- specifically, by residents or citizens of the city.

In 1797, an English translation of Emmerich de Vattel's Law of Nations gave this definition of "natural born citizen":

The natives, or natural born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. (Vattel, Law of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 19)

In both Patsall and Vattel, "natural born citizen" meant much more than someone who was born in a particular place. Parentage, upbringing and education also contributed to the meaning of "natural born citizen".

4.4 "Natural born citizen" appeared in Supreme Court decisions

In 1874, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Vattel's definition of "natural born citizen":

At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.

Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.

For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient, for everything we have now to consider, that all children, born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction, are themselves citizens (Minor v. Happersett, 1874)

The Supreme Court said, in effect:

• There is no doubt that, if you were born in the United States and both of your parents were U.S. citizens at the time of your birth, you are a natural born citizen.

• Throughout American history, various "authorities" (judges, district attorneys, legal experts, etc.) have expressed support for the "citizenship-by-birthplace-alone" theory. According to this theory, U.S.-born children of non-citizen parents are citizens at birth and presumably natural born citizens as well.

• The "citizenship-by-birthplace-alone" theory is unproven and remains subject to doubt.

In 1898, in the Wong Kim Ark case, the Supreme Court reexamined the "citizenship-by-birthplace-alone" theory, but did not decide whether it applied to natural born citizenship. The Court ruled that Mr. Ark was a citizen, but did not rule that he was a natural born citizen (SCOTUS in 'Wong Kim Ark').

To summarize, we know for sure that persons born in the U.S., of parents who are U.S. citizens, are definitely, without doubt, natural born citizens. So far, the Supreme Court has not decided whether natural born citizenship also includes U.S.-born children of non-citizen parents.

5. In a nutshell, what is the Obama eligibility controversy?

The following information comes directly from Barack Obama's website:

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. 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. (FactCheck.org, as quoted in Obama's "Fight the Smears" webpage regarding his birth certificate, emphasis added).

The main controversy boils down to this one question:

If Barack Obama Jr. was born in the United States but, at the time of his birth, his father was a citizen of a foreign country and not a U.S. citizen, does Barack Obama Jr. meet the Constitutional "natural born citizen" requirement for presidency?

Obama apologists say "Yes". They believe there are only two kinds of American citizens: naturalized and natural born. A naturalized citizen is someone who becomes a citizen after his or her birth, through a legal process called "naturalization". A natural born citizen is anyone who is a U.S. citizen at birth. Since President Obama was born in the United States and was consequently a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth, he is a natural born citizen, regardless of his parents' citizenship.

Birthers say "No". They believe that, when the Constitution was written, a "natural born citizen" was someone who was born in the United States and whose parents were both U.S. citizens at the time of his or her birth. You cannot be a Constitutional natural born citizen unless both of your parents were U.S. citizens when you were born. If you are not a Constitutional natural born citizen, you are not eligible to serve as President.

Thus we have two opposing viewpoints regarding the meaning of "natural born citizen". Which one is correct? So far, the Supreme Court has not answered this question because, until now, there was no reason to. Now, the Supreme Court needs to do its job and answer the question.

6. Does the birthers' viewpoint have any historical or legal merit?

Birthers believe that, in order to be a natural born citizen, you must be born in the United States and both of your parents, at the time of your birth, must be U.S. citizens. The birthers support their viewpoint with the following information:

• Every U.S. President who was born after 1787 -- except President Barack Obama and President Chester Arthur -- was born in the United States, to parents who were both U.S. citizens. The general public did not learn until recently that, when Chester Arthur was born, his father was not a U.S. citizen. The 2008 election is the first time in American history that America knowingly elected a post-1787-born President whose parents were not both U.S. citizens.

• When Chester Arthur ran for Vice President and later President, he told outright lies and burned historical records, to conceal the fact that, although he was born in the United States, his father was a British Subject and not a U.S. citizen at the time of his (President Arthur's) birth. If "natural born citizen" means anyone born in the United States, regardless of parental citizenship, why did Chester Arthur go through so much trouble to convince the public that his parents were U.S. citizens when he was born? It is inconceivable that Chester Arthur would have taken such extraordinary measures, unless he believed that his birth to non-citizen parents made him ineligible to serve as VP or President (Historical Breakthrough -- Chester Arthur)

• On March 9, 1866, Representative John Bingham of Ohio, considered the father of the 14th Amendment, said the following in a speech before House of Representatives:

  [I] find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen. (John Bingham, 1866, as quoted in Defining Natural Born Citizen)

• The Supreme Court has, on occasion, used the word "citizen" in reference to certain individuals who were either not born in the United States or not born of U.S.-citizen parents. Such individuals were citizens by law or by naturalization, but the Supreme Court has never referred to them as "natural born citizens". In those few cases in which the Supreme Court has declared an individual to be a "natural born citizen", the individual was always U.S.-born to U.S.-citizen parents. For example, in Perkins v. Elg (1939), Miss Elg was declared to be a natural born citizen. She was born in the United States and, when she was born, both of her parents were naturalized U.S. citizens.

• In 1797 (a decade after the Constitution was adopted), the English translation of Emmerich de Vattel's, Law of Nations was revised to include the term "natural born citizen". The revised English translation helps to clarify the meaning of "natural born citizen", as English-speaking people generally understood it towards the end of the 18th Century:

  The natives, or natural born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. ... I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. (Vattel, Law of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 19)

• In 1874, in the Minor v. Happersett case, the Supreme Court affirmed the definition of natural born citizen which had appeared in the 1797 English translation of Vattel's Law of Nations:

  ...it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. (Minor v. Happersett, 1874)

• In Minor v. Happersett, the Supreme Court expressed "doubts" regarding the citizenship of U.S.-born children whose parents were not U.S. citizens. In Wong Kim Ark, 1898, the Supreme Court examined these "doubts", but did not render any decision or ruling pertaining to natural born citizenship. The Court ruled that Mr. Ark was a citizen; it did not rule that he was a natural born citizen. To date, the Supreme Court has never answered the question as to whether natural born citizenship extends to children of non-citizen parents.

These sources do not prove the birthers' case. But they show that birthers have a rational basis for requesting a public inquiry into Barack Obama's presidential eligibility.

7. What was the original purpose of the presidential "natural born citizen" requirement?

The presidential natural born citizenship requirement originated with John Jay, who recommended it in a letter to George Washington. The letter said:

Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government ; and to declare expressly that the command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen. (John Jay letter to George Washington, 25 July 1787)

John Jay believed, and the Founding Fathers agreed, that anyone who is subject to foreign influence should be barred from the presidency. St. George Tucker (1752-1827) explained why:

That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to be dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against... To have added a [foreign] member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora's Box. (St. George Tucker, as quoted in Defining Natural-Born Citizen)

The Founding Fathers undoubtedly understood that natural born citizenship is acquired only at birth. Thus the presidential natural born citizenship provision was limited in scope. It could not protect the presidency from all possible forms of foreign intrusion. It could not exclude, from the presidency, people who had developed foreign sympathies or allegiances after their birth. At most, it could only bar, from the presidency, persons who were subject to foreign influence at birth -- specifically, persons who were foreign citizens at birth or were, at birth, subject to the laws of a foreign country.

When the Constitution was written, there were only two ways that a child could acquire foreign citizenship at birth or fall under foreign legal jurisdiction at birth:

• by being born in a foreign country; or
• by being born of parents who were citizens of a foreign country.

At the time, the United States did not recognize dual citizenship. No one could become a U.S. citizen without completely renouncing all foreign allegiance.

Therefore, in 1787, if you were born in the United States and your parents were U.S. citizens at the time of your birth, you were, without doubt, completely free of foreign influence at birth -- you were, without doubt, not a foreign citizen at birth and not subject to foreign legal jurisdiction at birth. On the other hand, if you were born outside of the United States or your parents were not U.S. citizens when you were born, you might have been, at birth, subject to foreign legal jurisdiction to some extent.

Thus the Founding Fathers undoubtedly understood that, in order for the presidential natural born citizen provision to be effective, the term "natural born citizen" had to mean "U.S.-born of U.S.-citizen parents". Otherwise, the provision would not work in all cases. It would occasionally allow, into the Office of President, individuals who were foreign citizens at birth or subject to foreign legal jurisdiction at birth -- the very kind of situation that the Founding Fathers had undoubtedly hoped to prevent, given their abhorrence of foreign influence in general.

8. What is the difference between a "Constitutional" and a "statutory" natural born citizen?

"Constitutional natural born citizen" refers to the term "natural born citizen" when it appears in the Constitution or in a Constitution-related document such as a Supreme Court decision. It refers to the meaning of "natural born citizen" in the Constitution, whatever the Supreme Court ultimately decides such meaning to be.

"Statutory natural born citizen" refers to someone who is deemed a "natural born citizen" as a result of a Federal or State law.

Currently, there is no Federal law that explicitly defines "natural born citizen" or explicitly conveys "natural born citizenship" to anyone. However, existing laws are sometimes understood or interpreted as conveying natural born citizenship to certain individuals at birth. At this point, we do not pass judgment on these understandings and interpretations. We merely say that, if someone is deemed to be a "natural born citizen" pursuant to a law or statute, we refer to such person as a "statutory natural born citizen".

A statutory natural born citizen is not necessarily the same thing as a Constitutional natural born citizen. The U.S. State Department warns against confusing the two concepts:

...the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes (Top of page 9, in U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual -- 7 FAM 1130)

If we were to define "natural born citizen" to mean anyone who is a "citizen at birth", our definition of "natural born citizen" would be statutory because it would depend on the statute or law which defines "citizen at birth". Under existing law, all children born in the United States (except the children of foreign diplomats) are "citizens at birth". Therefore, under existing law, almost all children born in the U.S. -- including children of illegal immigrants -- could be regarded as statutory natural born citizens.

However, H.R.1940, also known as the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007, would change the existing law so that it would no longer grant "citizenship at birth" to children of illegal immigrants. If Congress were to pass H.R.1940, it would alter the meaning of "citizen at birth", and therefore would alter our statutory definition of natural born citizen. If H.R.1940 were enacted, the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants could no longer be regarded as statutory natural born citizens.

To summarize:

• "Statutory natural born citizen" is the meaning of "natural born citizen" when such meaning depends on a Federal or State law. As Federal and State laws change, the meaning of "statutory natural born citizen" changes accordingly.

• "Constitutional natural born citizen" is the meaning of "natural born citizen" as used in the Constitution.

If Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, he could be regarded as a statutory natural born citizen. But a statutory natural born citizen is not necessarily a Constitutional natural born citizen.

9. Wouldn't the most recent modern-day statutory meaning of "natural born citizen" take precedence over the original Constitutional meaning?

Not necessarily. The only proper and legitimate means of changing the Constitution is the Constitutional Amendment process. Congress cannot change the Constitution by simply passing a law. Nor can the Constitution be changed by someone's understanding or interpretation of an existing law.

Neither Congress nor society can change the meaning of the Constitution by redefining a word or term that the Constitution uses. As the U.S. State Department has warned (see question 8), we cannot assume that "natural born citizen" by modern-day statute or modern-day word usage is the same thing as "natural born citizen" in the Constitution.

10. If Obama is not a "Constitutional natural born citizen", so what? Why should anyone care?

Understandably, some Americans question the wisdom of "enforcing the law" and "upholding the Constitution" when the specific requirement being upheld or enforced seems to be an antiquated technicality. As long as Barack Obama is doing his job as President, why should his parents' citizenship matter? Obama was elected President, not his parents. His parents passed away many years ago, so how is their citizenship relevant? Is enforcing a parental citizenship requirement really worth the horrific political chaos and unimaginable governmental disruption that might result if Obama were found to be ineligible?

Birthers respond in this way... If the Constitution contains something that is no longer appropriate for modern-day society, the proper remedy is a Constitutional Amendment. If we want to be a nation that is ruled by law and the Constitution, we cannot just ignore a Constitutional requirement, merely because it is inconvenient or we think it doesn't matter. If any one part of the Constitution doesn't matter, why would any other part of the Constitution matter?

Many of our rights -- free speech, freedom of religion, privacy, trial by jury, and so on -- come from the Constitution. If we say it's OK to ignore the Constitution regarding Obama's eligibility, we open the door for someone else to say it's OK to ignore the Constitution regarding issues which may directly affect our rights as citizens.

11. Why has every birther lawsuit been dismissed?

So far, every lawsuit challenging Obama's presidential eligibility has been dismissed on a technicality -- lack of standing, lack of jurisdiction, mootness, etc. So far, neither the Supreme Court nor any other court has considered, in an open hearing, the actual substance or merit of any of these cases. As of this writing, no court has ruled on whether or not Barack Obama is a Constitutional natural born citizen.

12. What is a 14th Amendment natural born citizen?

Some Obama apologists argue that the 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, had implicitly redefined "natural born citizen". They say that, under the new definition, Barack Obama qualifies as a natural born citizen.

The 14th Amendment citizenship clause states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

The 14th Amendment was enacted at a time when citizenship was, to some extent, managed and controlled by individual states. Each state had its own citizenship laws. Anyone who became a citizen of a state immediately and automatically became a citizen of the United States.

The 14th Amendment defined a certain class of people, which we call the "14th Amendment Citizen" (14AC) class. This 14AC class consists of every person who is both (a) born or naturalized in the United States, and (b) subject to U.S. jurisdiction at the time of his or her birth or naturalization.

The 14th Amendment required every state to accept, as a citizen, anyone belonging to the 14AC class. Each state could grant or deny citizenship to non-14AC people. But the 14th Amendment prohibited any state from denying citizenship to 14AC-class members.

Even though the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment only mentions citizens and never mentions natural born citizens, Obama apologists argue that the 14th Amendment implicitly redefined "natural born citizen" to mean anyone who meets two requirements:

• born in the United States, and
• subject to U.S. jurisdiction at the time of his or her birth.

The argument goes as follows: Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, which was, in 1961, a part of the United States. Therefore he met the first requirement. His mother was a U.S. citizen; and his father, though not a U.S. citizen, was nevertheless in the United States legally. Since both of his parents were subject to U.S. law, Barack Obama himself was under U.S. jurisdiction at the time of his birth. Consequently the President meets both requirements of natural born citizenship, as redefined by the 14th Amendment.

This "14th Amendment natural born citizen" argument depends heavily on the meaning of "jurisdiction", which is discussed next.

13. In the 14th Amendment, what does "jurisdiction" mean?

During the debates over the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, both of its primary framers, Sen. Jacob Howard and Sen. Lyman Trumbull, made it clear that the word "jurisdiction", as used in the 14th Amendment, means sole, complete, absolute, exclusive U.S. jurisdiction and the absence of any other jurisdiction or allegiance.

Sen. Lyman Trumbull: The provision is, that "all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens." That means "subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof." What do we mean by "complete jurisdiction thereof?" Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.

Sen. Jacob Howard: [I] concur entirely with the honorable Senator from Illinois [Trumbull], in holding that the word "jurisdiction," as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, coextensive in all respects with the constitutional power of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now. (What 'Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof' Really Means)

In 1884, the Supreme Court said:

The persons declared to be citizens are "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." The evident meaning of these last words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. And the words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards except by being naturalized... (Page 112 U. S. 101-102, Elk v. Wilkins, 1884)

Sole U.S. jurisdiction was a core requirement for 14th Amendment citizenship. The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to emancipated slaves and their descendants, because they were, and have always been, under sole U.S. jurisdiction. Native Americans were subject to tribal jurisdiction and thus were not under sole U.S. jurisdiction. That's why the 14th Amendment did not grant citizenship to American Indians, even though virtually all American Indians were born in the United States.

For sake of argument, if the 14th Amendment had redefined "natural born citizen" to mean anyone "born in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" (where "jurisdiction" is understood to mean sole U.S. jurisdiction), Obama would still fail to meet the natural born citizen requirement. Here's why...

On his web site, Obama claims that his father was a British subject and that, in 1961, the citizenship status of children of British subjects was "governed" (that's Obama's word) by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Thus Obama's citizenship status, at birth, was "governed" by British law, in addition to U.S. law.

If Obama's citizenship status at birth was "governed" by the laws of a foreign country, how could he, at birth, be subject to sole U.S. jurisdiction, which is an essential requirement for 14th Amendment citizenship?

14. Doesn't the Wong Kim Ark decision make Obama a "natural born citizen"?

Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States sometime between 1868 and 1873. When he was born, his parents were Chinese immigrants and were permanent legal residents of the United States; but they were not U.S. citizens. In the Wong Kim Ark (1898) case, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Ark was a U.S. citizen, even though his parents were not.

The evident intention, and the necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties, were to present for determination the single question, stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States. For the reasons above stated, this court is of opinion that the question must be answered in the affirmative. (Page 169 U.S. 705, Wong Kim Ark, 1898)

The Wong Kim Ark case does not directly apply to Barack Obama's presidential eligibility, for two reasons:

• The Supreme Court did not rule that Mr. Ark was a natural born citizen. It merely ruled that he was a citizen. Even if Barack Obama's circumstances at birth were identical to those of Mr. Ark, the Wong Kim Ark decision would, at most, only convey citizenship to the President. It would not convey natural born citizenship, which is what the President needs in order to be eligible to hold office (SCOTUS in 'Wong Kim Ark').

• Mr. Ark was granted citizenship because, at the time of Mr. Ark's birth, his parents had "permanent domicile and residence" in the United States and was "carrying on business" in the United States. President Obama's father did not meet these conditions. He was not a permanent resident and he was not doing business in the U.S. He was merely visiting the U.S. temporarily, presumably on a student visa, for the purpose of getting an American education.

Obama apologists argue that the reasoning of the Wong Kim Ark decision, when carried to its logical conclusion, supports the viewpoint that natural born citizenship is determined by birthplace alone:

It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established. (Page 169 U. S. 658, Wong Kim Ark, 1898)

The Wong Kim Ark reasoning was based largely on the assumption that the "rule" of British Common Law "continued to prevail" under the Constitution. In its dissenting opinion, the minority in the Wong Kim Ark case argued that the majority's assumption was factually incorrect. On this one point, the minority and majority disagreed, not over a matter of law, but over a matter of historical fact:

And it is this rule, pure and simple, which it is asserted determined citizenship of the United States during the entire period prior to the passage of the act of April 9, 1866, and the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and governed the meaning of the words "citizen of the United States" and "natural-born citizen" used in the Constitution as originally framed and adopted. I submit that no such rule obtained during the period referred to, and that those words bore no such construction... (Page 169 U. S. 707, Wong Kim Ark, 1898)

According to the Federalist Blog, the minority in the Wong Kim Ark case was correct. As matter of American history, some States retained certain aspects of British Common Law for their own purposes, but overall, British Common Law did not "continue to prevail" at the Federal level (Why U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Can Never Be Considered Settled Birthright Law; see also discussion of Wong Kim Ark in Amicus Curiae Brief in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld).

George Mason, called the "Father of the Bill of Rights" and considered one of the "Founding Fathers" of the United States, is widely quoted as saying:

The common law of England is not the common law of these states. ( Debate in Virginia Ratifying Convention, 19 June 1788)

In a recent speech to the Federalist Society, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia confirmed that British Common Law had little, if any, "control" in the USA after the USA gained its independence from Great Britain:

The common law is gone. The federal courts never applied the common law and even in the state courts it's codified now. (Audio/Video: Justice Scalia speech, Nov 22, 2008)

Wong Kim Ark's circumstances, though different from Barack Obama's, were virtually identical to those of President Chester Arthur. Mr. Ark and President Arthur were born in the United States. When each was born, his parents were permanent legal residents of the United States, but were not U.S. citizens; the parents were, in both cases, citizens of a foreign country. Under the laws in effect at the time (prior to the Wong Kim Ark decision), neither Wong Kim Ark nor Chester Arthur was a U.S. citizen at birth.

The Wong Kim Ark decision was written by Justice Horace Gray. Justice Gray was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Chester Arthur. At the time, the general public did not know that, when Chester Arthur was born, his father was a British subject and not a U.S. citizen; therefore Arthur was not a U.S. citizen at birth under then-existing laws.

In Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz, the plaintiff (Cort Wrotnowski) argued that the Wong Kim Ark decision was not based on an impartial objective reading of history and the law, but was designed to grant U.S. citizenship retroactively to Chester Arthur, so as to legitimize Chester Arthur's presidency and thereby legitimize Horace Gray's own appointment to the Supreme Court (Wrotnowski supplemental brief regarding Chester Arthur).

15. Doesn't the Julia Lynch case show that Barack Obama is a "natural born citizen"?

Julia Lynch was born in New York in 1819. At the time of her birth, her parents were not U.S. citizens -- they were Irish citizens visiting the United States. Shortly after Julia's birth, the Lynch family returned to Ireland, where Julia remained until adulthood.

In the Lynch v Clarke (1844) case, the First Circuit Court (not the U.S. Supreme Court) ruled that Julia was a U.S. citizen at birth. In the opinion of Vice-Chancellor Lewis Halsey Sandford, the judge who presided over this case, there is "no doubt" that Julia Lynch was also a natural born citizen:

After an exhaustive examination of the law, the Vice-Chancellor said that he entertained no doubt that every person born in within the dominions and allegiances of the United States, whatever the situation of his parents, was a natural-born citizen; and added, that this was the general understanding of the legal profession, and the universal impression of the public mind. (pp 581-582, in Cases on Constitutional Law - Part 2)

An article in the New York Legal Observer elaborated:

The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not. The position would be decisive in his favor that by the rule of the common law, in force when the constitution was adopted, he is a citizen." (Dicta from Lynch v. Clarke (1844), cited by Article in New York Legal Observer).

Later in American history, the Opinion of Lincoln's Attorney General Edward Bates (1862) and the dissenting opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856), echoed the same viewpoint -- that you are a U.S. citizen (and presumably a U.S. natural born citizen as well) if you were born in the United States, regardless of your parents' citizenship.

Birther Response: Birthers do not deny that, throughout American history, various "authorities" (judges, attorney generals, legal experts, etc.) have expressed the opinion that birth within the United States is, by itself, sufficient to convey U.S. citizenship and perhaps natural born citizenship as well.

However, throughout history, other authorities have expressed the opinion that citizenship at birth properly belongs only to children whose parents are U.S. citizens. For example:

• When we apply the term "citizens" to the inhabitants of States, it means those who are members of the political community. The civil law determined the condition of the son by that of the father. A man whose father was not a citizen was allowed to be a perpetual inhabitant, but not a citizen, unless citizenship was conferred on him. (Rep. A. Smyth (VA), House of Representatives, December 1820, as quoted in Defining Natural-Born Citizen)

• As a man is a "citizen" of the country to which his father owes allegiance, it was incumbent on one alleging in an election contest that a voter was not a citizen of the United States to show that such voter's father was not a citizen thereof during his son's minority. (Savage v. Umphries (TX) 118 S. W. 893, 909, as quoted in Defining Natural-Born Citizen)

Thus we have an ongoing debate between (a) "authorities" who believe that natural born citizenship is determined by birthplace alone, and (b) "authorities" who believe that parental citizenship is a requirement for natural born citizenship. So far, the Supreme Court has not decided the issue, one way or the other. However, in 1874, the Supreme Court said there were "doubts" regarding the citizenship status of U.S.-born children of non-citizen parents:

...it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts." (Minor v. Happersett, 1874)

The Supreme Court has yet to resolve these doubts.

British Common Law: Prior to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the thirteen colonies were under British rule and were governed by British Common Law. Under British Common Law, if you were born on British territory, you were automatically, at birth, a British natural-born Subject, even if your parents were aliens. This principle -- that one's citizenship is derived from one's place of birth -- is called jus soli ("the right of soil"):

The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. In which the constitution of France differs from ours; for there, by their jus albinatus, if a child be born of foreign parents, it is an alien. (Blackstone, Commentaries, 1765).

When the thirteen colonies gained their independence and became States, they were no longer bound by the jus soli principle of British Common Law. Each State was free to enact its own birthright citizenship laws. When a state enacted its own laws, such laws replaced the citizenship provisions of British Common Law in that particular state.

For example, Virginia enacted this law, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1779:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that

• all white persons born within the territory of this commonwealth and all who have resided therein two years next before the passing of this act, and all who shall hereafter migrate into the same; and shall before any court of record give satisfactory proof by their own oath or affirmation, that they intend to reside therein, and moreover shall give assurance of fidelity to the commonwealth; and

• all infants wheresoever born, whose father, if living, or otherwise, whose mother was, a citizen at the time of their birth, or who migrate hither, their father, if living, or otherwise their mother becoming a citizen, or who migrate hither without father or mother,

shall be deemed citizens of this commonwealth, until they relinquish that character in manner as herein after expressed: And all others not being citizens of any the United States of America, shall be deemed aliens. (Thomas Jefferson, 1779, A Bill Declaring Who Shall Be Deemed Citizens of This Commonwealth, formatting and line spacing added for readability and clarity).

The Virginia law made citizenship available to all white people who were born in Virginia. If you were born in Virginia and you were not already a citizen, you could, in adulthood, become a citizen by taking an oath. But the Virginia law did not grant immediate and automatic citizenship, at birth, to every white baby born in Virginia. Under Virginia law, automatic citizenship at birth was controlled by the principle of jus sanguinis ("the right of blood"), whereby the citizenship of a child, at the moment of its birth, is the citizenship of its parents. (What 'Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof' Really Means)

New York State law: New York State made a choice to retain the jus soli principle of British Common Law. Anyone born in New York was, at birth, automatically a citizen of New York, regardless of parental citizenship.

The Lynch v. Clarke (1844) case, and other cases such as Munro vs. Merchant (1858), were decided in accordance with British Common Law, not because British Common Law was the national law of the United States, but because it was the applicable State law in New York State. Under New York State law, Julia Lynch was a citizen at birth and therefore she was deemed to be a statutory natural born citizen.

Her natural born citizenship was "statutory" because it depended on the State law that was in effect in the State in which she was born. Had she been born in Virginia instead of New York State, she would not have been a U.S. citizen at birth, and she would not have been a statutory natural born citizen.

The fact that Julia Lynch was deemed to be a statutory natural born citizen in New York State does not necessarily mean that she was a Constitutional natural born citizen (see Question 8), especially since the Supreme Court has, so far, not decided whether Constitutional natural born citizenship extends to children of non-citizen parents.

16. Could "natural born citizen" be based on the British Common Law principle of jus soli?

Not likely, for two reasons:

First, if the British Common Law principle of jus soli (citizenship by birthplace alone) had been adopted at the national level, what would have been the point of granting each state the right to enact its own birthright citizenship laws?

After the Constitution was adopted, every State had the right to enact laws that deny citizenship at birth to some children born in that State, such as children of African or Native-American descent, and children whose parents were not U.S. citizens. How could the States have acquired or exercised such a right if the nation, as a whole, had embraced the doctrine that "everyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen"? (Defining Natural Born Citizen).

Second, all States were unanimous in granting citizenship at birth to children who met both the jus soli criterion (they were born in the United States) and the jus sanguinis criterion (their parents were U.S. citizens). Some states routinely denied citizenship at birth to children who met only one of these criteria but not both.

A more inclusive definition of "natural born citizen" -- which required either jus soli or jus sanguinis but not necessarily both -- is unlikely because it would have included people whom some states were denying citizenship to. It is improbable that the Founding Fathers would have permitted states to deny citizenship to natural born citizens. More likely, "natural born citizen" referred to a class of people that all states were already recognizing as undeniable U.S. citizens.

U.S. citizenship is undeniable only in individuals who, at birth, meet both the jus soli and the jus sanguinis criteria. Consequently, the only plausible definition of an undeniable U.S. citizen is the birthers' definition of "natural born citizen" -- a U.S.-born individual whose parents are both U.S. citizens.

17. What's the "beef" with President Obama's birth certificate?

President Obama has published, on the internet, a digital photograph of a computer-generated short-form Certification of Life Birth. The President has not published a copy of his original 1961 typewritten long-form birth certificate containing the names and signatures of people who actually witnessed his birth.

In Hawaii, the contents of an original long-form birth certificate are private and confidential information, protected by State law. The Aloha State will not release a copy of an original birth certificate without permission. So far, President Obama has not given his permission for the release of his original long-form birth certificate.

If you were born in Hawaii and you ask for a copy of your Hawaiian birth certificate for a routine everyday purpose such as applying for a drivers license or passport, the State of Hawaii will not send you a copy of your original long-form birth certificate.

Instead, the State will send you a computer generated short-form Certification of Live Birth, which shows only minimal information -- your name, date of birth, place of birth, name and race of each of your parents, and so forth. A Certification of Live Birth can be used, instead of an original long-form birth certificate, for most everyday purposes.

A Certification of Live Birth shows an individual's birth information but does not show the source of that information. In Hawaii, the identity of the source of one's birth information -- whether it be a hospital, a doctor, or a parent's or relative's affidavit -- is deemed to be private and confidential. Thus the name of a source is found only on an original long-form birth certificate, and is not found on a Certification of Live Birth.

Barack Obama's Certification of Live Birth confirms two facts:

• The State of Hawaii has, in its files, the President's original 1961 typewritten long-form birth certificate; and

• The President's original 1961 birth certificate says he was born in Hawaii.

Birthers do not dispute either of these two facts. Birthers merely want to know the extent, if any, to which the information on Barack Obama's original 1961 long-form birth certificate came from or was verified by someone other than an immediate family member.

18. Didn't the State of Hawaii recently verify that President Obama was born in Hawaii?

On October 31, 2008, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, released this public statememnt regarding (then Senator) Barack Obama's birth certificate:

There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's official birth certificate. State law (Hawai'i Revised Statutes 338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.

Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai'i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai'i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.

No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawai'i. (Statement by Dr. Chiyome Fukino).

Dr. Fukino confirmed that Barack Obama's original 1961 long-form Hawaiian birth certificate exists, and the Hawaii State Department of Health has possession of it. But she did not confirm or verify any information contained in the birth certificate itself.

Under Hawaii State law, the contents of a birth certificate are private and confidential. Consequently, Dr. Fukino could not legally disclose or confirm any information contained in Barack Obama's birth certificate.

Nonetheless, there is little doubt that President Obama's original Hawaiian birth certificate says he was born in Hawaii. Under the laws that were in effect in Hawaii when Barack Obama was born, the State of Hawaii would not have knowingly issued a Hawaiian birth certificate to anyone born outside of Hawaii.

Act 96 of Laws of the Territory of Hawaii was adopted in 1911. Under this Act, Hawaiian birth certificates were issued only to individuals who were believed to be born in Hawaii:

The Secretary of Hawaii may, whenever satisfied that any person was born within the Hawaiian Islands, cause to be issued to such person a certificate showing such fact. (pp 127-128, Laws of the Territory of Hawaii)

A subsequent law, enacted in 1955, reaffirmed the fact that Hawaiian birth certificates were given only to individuals who were believed to be Hawaii-born.

Under the 1955 law, the State of Hawaii could issue Hawaiian birth certificates in cases in which the birth was not independently confirmed by an attending physician or midwife. In such cases, a judicial or administrative body or official must determine the birth certificate's probative value:

In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or mid wife, then, up to the first birthday of the child, an adult could, upon testimony, file a "Delayed Certificate", which required endorsement on the Delayed Certificate of a summary statement of the evidence submitted in support of the acceptance for delayed filing, which evidence must be kept in a special permanent file. The statute provided that the probative value of the Delayed Certificate must be determined by the judicial or administrative body or official before whom the certificate is offered as evidence. (See Section 57-18, 19 & 20 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961). (Hawaii Birth Records Law)

Hawaiian Statute 338-17.8, Certificates for children born out of State, allowed Hawaiian birth certificates to be issued to foreign-born children of Hawaii-resident parents. But Statute 338-17.8 was not enacted until 1982, well after Barack Obama was born.

In 1961, the State of Hawaii would not have issued a birth certificate to Barack Obama unless the State believed he was born in Hawaii. Barack Obama's original 1961 typewritten birth certificate undoubtedly says he was born in Hawaii.

But questions still remain. When Barack Obama was born, was his birth attended by a doctor or midwife? If not, who testified regarding his birth? His mother? His grandmother? Were any of these people interviewed? Was there a judicial or administrative hearing to determine the birth certificate's probative value? Who recorded the date and time of Barack Obama's birth? Could his actual date of birth have been a week or two earlier?

Barack Obama's birth in Hawaii cannot be regarded as "verified" until these questions are answered.

19. Doesn't the mere existence of Barack Obama's original Hawaiian birth certificate prove that he was born in Hawaii?

Barack Obama's original Hawaiian birth certificate, by its mere existence, shows that the State of Hawaii believed he was born in Hawaii. His birth certificate would prove that he was born in Hawaii only if his birth in Hawaii was witnessed and confirmed by someone other than an immediate family member. For example:

• If Barack Obama was born in a hospital in Hawaii, his birth certificate would indicate that a hospital had confirmed his birth in that hospital. Such confirmation would show, beyond reasonable doubt, that President Obama was born in Hawaii.

• If Barack Obama was born at home, his birth certificate would show the name of the professional (presumably, a doctor, midwife or paramedic) who assisted with the delivery. The professional's name and signature would confirm, and thus remove any reasonable doubt, that Obama's birth took place in Hawaii.

But consider this hypothetical scenario: Suppose Stanley Ann Obama (President Obama's mother) had been a resident of Hawaii since June 1960. Suppose that, in November or December 1960, upon learning of her pregnancy, she received prenatal care from a local doctor in Hawaii. Suppose that, on Monday August 7, 1961, she walked into her doctor's office, carrying a recently-born baby in her arms. Suppose she told her doctor that the birth took place, suddenly and unexpectedly, on Friday evening, August 4, 1961. Suppose she said that, when she gave birth, no one else was present, except Madelyn Dunham, the baby's maternal grandmother, who assisted with the delivery. Suppose the doctor examined this baby and found nothing that conclusively disproved Stanley Ann's story.

Given the mother's testimony, her history of prenatal care in Hawaii, her Hawaii residency, and the absence of contravening evidence from her doctor, the State of Hawaii would have probably issued a birth certificate for her baby, even though NO ONE outside of the baby's immediate family had actually witnessed the baby's birth in Hawaii.

The birth certificate would show no independent corroboration of the baby's birth in Hawaii. The Hawaii State Department of Health officials would have believed that the baby was born in Hawaii because the mother had said so and they had no compelling reason to believe otherwise. But the birthplace indicated on the birth certificate would be based solely on the mother's unsubstantiated testimony.

What if Stanley Ann and her recently-born baby had arrived, on an overseas flight, at Honolulu International Airport, on Sunday, August 6, 1961? In the absence of an original birth certificate, such theoretical possibilities, however implausible and far fetched, cannot be entirely ruled out.

Until President Obama releases an original birth certificate showing independent corroboration of his birth in Hawaii, no one can say for sure whether the President meets the first requirement of natural born citizenship -- birth within the United States.

20. Do birthers actually believe that President Obama was born in a foreign country?

Birthers are divided over this issue. Some believe President Obama was born overseas. Others believe that, when the President's birth certificate is released, it will show conclusively that he was born in Hawaii. Until the President's original 1961 typewritten long-form birth certificate is published, no one can say for sure, one way or the other, where he was born.

Among the various attorneys and plaintiffs who have filed lawsuits challenging the President's eligibility and/or seeking the release of his original long-form birth certificate, there is no consensus of opinion regarding the President's actual place of birth.

• Attorney Phil Berg believes the President was born in Kenya.

• Attorney Leo Donofrio and Attorney Mario Apuzzo believe Barack Obama was probably born in Hawaii, but it doesn't really matter. Regardless of where he was born, the President is ineligible because of his father's foreign citizenship.

• One-time adjunct law professor Andy Martin believes the President was almost certainly born in Hawaii. Neverlessless, Dr. Martin argues that the President's birth certificate is an historical document and, for that reason, joins with birthers in seeking its release.

Despite widely differing opinions on the birthplace question, birthers are unanimous in advocating (a) the release of the President's original 1961 long-form Hawaiian birth certificate, and (b) an open public judicial hearing regarding the President's Constitutional eligibility.

21. If President Obama's birth certificate shows conclusively that he was born in Hawaii, would it end the eligibility controversy?

Definitely not! President Obama has stated publicly that his father was not a U.S. citizen. According to the birthers' understanding of history and law, if his father was not a U.S. citizen, President Obama cannot be a Constitutional natural born citizen, regardless of where he might have been born. If President Obama was born in Hawaii, he could be regarded as a statutory natural born citizen, but he would not necessarily be a Constitutional natural born citizen.

Regardless of what his birth certificate says, Obama's presidential eligibility will never be settled or resolved, until the Supreme Court decides whether the U.S.-born children of non-U.S.-citizen parents are Constitutional natural born citizens.

22. Where do we go from here?

2008 was the first time in history that the United States knowingly elected a post-1787-born President whose parents were not both U.S. citizens at the time of his birth. In Minor v. Happersett, 1874, the Supreme Court stated that there is a legitimate unanswered question, or "doubt", as to whether a U.S.-born child of a non-citizen parent is a Constitutional natural born citizen. Until the Supreme Court answers this question, it is by no means "settled" that Barack Obama is Constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States.

The DC District Court has the authority to investigate the eligibility of a sitting President. The DC District Court received this authority from Congress when Congress passed the Federal Quo Warranto Statute in 1901 and revised it, in 1963, to its present form.

The Federal Quo Warranto Statute is thoroughly explained in this three-part series:

Quo Warranto -- Part 1

Quo Warranto -- Part 2

Quo Warranto -- Part 3

A Quo Warranto inquiry is not a prosecution. It does not accuse Barack Obama of breaking any law. The inquiry is a civil proceeding, not a criminal one. In a Quo Warranto inquiry, the DC District Court would say to Barack Obama something to this effect (loosely paraphrased):

Mr. President, you are being asked to show, beyond reasonable doubt, that you are eligible to hold the office that you are currently holding. Please be advised: 1) You bear the burden of proof. It is up to you to show that you are eligible to serve as President. 2) Constitutional questions will be heard and settled by the U.S. Supreme Court. 3) This Quo Warranto proceeding has teeth. It operates under Congressional authority. If you cannot or will not show the Court, beyond reasonable doubt, that you are eligible to be President, this Court has the power and the authority to remove you from office.

The DC District Court would determine (by jury, if necessary) the relevant facts of the case -- Obama's birthplace, his parents' citizenship, etc. The Supreme Court would then decide the Constitutional legal issues, such as what a Constitutional natural born citizen is and whether Barack Obama is such a citizen.

If you believe there is enough doubt about Obama's eligibility to warrant a public inquiry, please consider writing, in your own words, a letter to the proper authorities, politely and respectfully asking them to bring (or permit a third party to bring) the matter before the DC District Court. Attorney Leo Donofrio suggests writing to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, since the U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia Jeffrey Taylor has resigned.

By writing, you would show that (a) you care about the Constitution, (b) you believe there are reasonable doubts about the President's Constitutional eligibility, and (c) faithfulness to the Constitution requires a proper and timely investigation and resolution of these doubts.

---

SITE NOTE: WISHFUL THINKING: On 12 Dec 2008 on Citizen Wells, Blogger "Ladyhawke" wrote: "Call me wishful, but here is how I see it: Look at the actual SCOTUS order of last Monday: Dec 8: Supreme Court List of Cases You will find the Donofrio case listed under "Orders in Pending Cases." All the SCOTUS did is deny the request for the Stay. The case is still alive. At about the same time, they seemed to fast track (for them) the Wrotnowski case for conference earlier today. Why? According to the Constitution, nothing untoward has actually happened yet. That changes Monday after the Electoral College votes. Should the EC vote for someone ineligible, SCOTUS may combine and grant cert to both cases." (Cort Wrontnowski suit and Leo Donofrio suit).

Leo Donofrio attempted to file a STAY, but was denied -- but Ladyhawke argues that the case is still alive and only the request of a stay of the Electoral College was denied. (Dec 8:

ORDERS IN PENDING CASES...
08A407 DONOFRIO, LEO C. V. WELLS, NJ SEC. OF STATE
The application for stay addressed to Justice Thomas and referred to the Court is denied.

Later on 12 Dec 2008 she tried to clarify: "Let me try this again. The Supreme Court can only intervene when there is a Constitutional issue at stake. As yet, there is nothing Unconstitutional that has happened. Donofrio asked for a stay of the Electoral College vote and to be granted certiorari. They are not going to grant the stay of the EC because of something that might happen. I never expected that they would. Technically, but unlikely, the EC could still vote for an eligible candidate. The SCOTUS said nothing about denying cert. They left that open. There was another case listed on their Orders of Monday, where they denied a stay and cert., so clearly that is their procedure. Why they did not do that in Donofrio is a great interest to me."

The idea made sense that the Supreme Court simply could NOT act BEFORE the Electoral College cast their ballots. If one looks at the "natural born citizen" issue from the perspective that the Supreme Court can NOT act until the Constitution is imperilled, then it would make perfect sense that they would have to wait until AFTER the Electoral College voted on 15 Dec 2008. At that point, Obama would be "technically" President-elect. He would not be "officially" President-elect until 8 Jan 2009 when they counted the votes. The Supreme Court as the protector of the Constitution could not legally act until Obama became the "President-elect."

From this perspective, the Supreme Court cannot act on any "natural born citizen" case even if it did have merit because all the cases up to that point would have been only hypothetical. In effect, even if Obama was born in Tanzania, he had NOT violated the Constitution up to this point. Despite the fact that Obama is using the title "President-elect", he still had not been elected President-elect. He did he NOT have to show any proof of his qualifications as a "natural born citizen" up to that point because the election was still not controlled by the Constitutional requirements.

The REAL election — the Electoral College vote — is the election that counts and the Constitution applies. It had not been concluded when all the suits started flying to the Supreme Court. Only after the Electoral College vote would there be a Constitutional issue that needed to be resolved. The popular vote is NOT what elects the President. It is the Electoral College — and until they had voted the Supreme Court couldn't act.

After the electors in each State record their votes on six "Certificates of Vote," which are paired with the six remaining original "Certificates of Ascertainment" -- previously sent by the states after the 4 Nov election to the Archivist of the United States. The electors sign, seal and certify the packages of electoral votes and immediately send them to the President of the Senate, the Archivist of the United States and other designated Federal and State officials. It is at this point that Obama becomes "technically" the President-elect -- but not "officially" yet. It will not be until 8 Jan 2009 when they count the votes in Congress and certify the results that Obama becomes "officially" the President-elect.

Only after the Electoral College vote and Obama was "technically" the President-elect could the Supreme Court act as only then could it be considered a Constitutional issue. If this was their strategy, it would be interesting to note WHEN they would act. They could choose 15 Dec 2008 when Obama is "technically" President-elect or wait till 8 Jan 2009 when Obama becomes "officially" the President-elect.

Despite the fact that Obama has used the term "President-elect" since right after the election on 4 Nov 2008, he still was NOT truely elected as yet. Looking at the "natural born citizen" question from this perspective, all the suits filed up to that point had been simply HYPOTHETICAL cases -- and the Supreme Court could NOT act upon them. After the Electoral College vote, the Court could rule on the Leo Donofrio and Cort Wrontnowski suits about "natural born citizen."

On 15 Dec 2008, it was stated in the media that Cort Wrontnowski's suit had been DENIED. It stated, "The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a second challenge to the presidency of Barack Obama, announcing today it denied an application for a stay or an injunction in a case from Connecticut." On the 15 Dec 2008 list -- the next list released after the 8 Dec 2008 list -- the case of Leo Donofrio was removed. Thus the case posited by Ladyhawke seemed to be wrong that those listed under "Orders in Pending Cases" was just notice of denial -- not the the cases were still active. However, in its place was the Cort Wrotnowski's case which is identical to Leo Donofrio's case. Thus Ladyhawke's position still was valid that the Supreme Court was taking a wait-and-see attitude by keeping the case active -- though denying the Electoral College injunction. However, the rest of the media felt that they had been dealt a death blow.

ORDERS IN PENDING CASES...
08A469 WROTNOWSKI, CORT V. BYSIEWICZ, CT SEC. OF STATE
The application for stay and/or injunction addressed to Justice Scalia and referred to the Court is denied.
(Source: Dec 15: Supreme Court List of Cases.)

It is still wishful thinking, but under the Ladyhawke position, the US Supreme Court is waiting till AFTER the Electoral College votes have been sent to the US Archivist -- due by 24 Dec 2008 in their hands -- and then await the vote counting on 8 Jan 2009 in the Congress. At that point, Obama would be "officially" the President-elect and the Supreme Court could issue a stay of execution until Obama provided proof of citizenship. There was nothing to do but to wait to see if this theory was proved wrong.

Others say "Orders in Pending cases" is used to indicate cases that where pending waiting for an order. Now that they have an order they are no longer Pending. The case is closed which explains why Donofrio's case no longer is shown in the same Dec 15 category as Wrotnowski's case. Thus the SCOTUS is done with the cases unless they decide to try another case. Wrotnowski did not file a petition for a writ of certiorari, so no further action will be taken on his case unless a petition is filed.

(SITE NOTE: At this point, if we were to believe the Supreme Court was involved in a plan to wait, we would almost certainly believe that the Court's justices would not be on the phone to President Bush to urge him to use his powers to obtain the birth certificate as a matter of national security -- with a Constitutional Crisis in the wings. This would prove the case one way or another. We cannot believe that this would NOT have already happened as the stakes are so high -- and the cost of rioting in the streets and the loss of faith in the government.)

UPDATE: 4 Jun 2009 The World Net Daily sponsored a campaign to put up billboards around America asking for Obama's birth certificate. The WND raised $45,000 in donations to put up the billboards. According to WND, CBS, the company touting itself as the "world's largest out-of-home media" enterprise has banned WND's national billboard campaign that asks one simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?" (NOTE: There is no mention of Obama's name -- only the question and "WND.com" at the bottom.) CBS Outdoor, a division of CBS Corp. that sells more outdoor advertising than any other billboard company in North America, refuses to accept purchases of space on any of its 550,000 displays nationwide, media buyers for WND report. "Here we have one of the largest media companies in the U.S. now not only refusing to allow news coverage of a vitally important national question being asked by millions of Americans, but one that won't even permit the purchase of space to raise the question. "What is the value of a First Amendment in a country when this kind of self-censorship is at work -- self-censorship specifically geared to stifle inquiry and debate about the most powerful person in the country," said Joseph Farah.

"CBS is a company that is not squeamish about feeding America's children a steady diet of offensive movies, obscene rap music and even TV commercials that push the cultural and moral envelope. But CBS is afraid to put up a sign containing four innocent words of constitutionally protected, non-inflammatory speech. You explain that to me. This is a giant media conglomerate unworthy of operating under the protection of the First Amendment." The local account executive at CBS was shocked by the response from the top levels of the corporation. "We just received an e-mail from CBS Corporate," he wrote. "They are aware of this campaign and we are not allowed to install it. This came straight from corporate. Sorry!" (Source: WND.)

Obama launched a website last week called "Open Government Dialogue." The website invites, "...open participation and diverse viewpoints to be shared, the main goal of this dialogue is to answer the overarching question: How can we strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness by making government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative?" What "idea" most frequently threaded through the first several pages of the top-vote getters? Various forms of "release your birth certificate." At one point, 74% of the "ideas" were about Obama's long-form birth certificate and the moderators of "Open Government Dialogue" have been working tirelessly to edit out the dialogue about Obama's elusive "long-form" birth certificate. Once the "birthers" found out about the site, the website was inundated by comments demanding Obama's birth certificate. As a result the moderators went to work and deleted 201 threads and thousands of comments under them. In other words, Obama asked for transparency and openess -- but as soon as the website started getting negative comments against him, it was immediately "scrubbed." (Source: http://opengov.ideascale.com.) (SITE NOTE: The site is NOT a government site, but put up with Obama's approval.)

Steven Lee Craig
1309 Hisel Rd.
Del City, Oklahoma 73115
Plaintiff
Vs.
The United States of America
C/o U.S. Attorney
Washington, D.C.
Defendant
)
)
) Case No. Civ-09-0343-F
)
Motion
Declaratory Judgment
MOVANT HEREIN ASSERTS that the grievance of the Complaint is given rise by virtue of ‘exclusion and omission’ of definition and meaning of a term of consequence found within a Constitutional phrase by Act’s, Bill’s, Resolution’s, Proclamation’s or Judgement’s of the United States of America. The fact’s being indisputable.
Cont;
MOVANT HEREIN ASSERTS that any ‘controversy’ as to the meaning of the subject phrase “Natural Born Citizen” is contrived, incomprehensible and frivolous.
MOVANT HEREIN ASSERTS that with and by the process of ‘distilling’ all forms of ‘Naturalization’, arising from any and all Act’s promulgated regarding Naturalization or from any and all Litigated Cases of same, the ‘natural born’ form of Citizenship is all that remains, naturally so; a person born within the jurisdiction of the United States of America of two (2) American Citizen parents who are without further Citizenship alienation and/or allegiance. THEREFORE MOVANT seeks Declaratory Judgment under the Rules.
By leave of the Court I do pray it be so Ordered.
Pro Se, In Forma Pauperis
_________________________
Steven Lee Craig
1309 Hisel Rd.
Del City, Oklahoma
73115
(405) 670-1784

. Steven Lee Craig
1309 Hisel Rd.
Del City, Oklahoma 73115
Plaintiff
Vs.
The United States of America
C/o U.S. Attorney
Washington, D.C.
Defendant
)
) Case No. Civ-09-0343-F
)
) 10th Circuit 09-6082
)
SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT

NOW COMES, Steven Lee Craig, Claiming to be of Constitutionally recognized form of Citizenship known as Natural Born Citizen of the United States of America under the definition as found expressed in a published work of general use by the Framers of the Constitution of the United States of America in formulating many of the principles and specific Articles, Sections and Clauses found therein. That
Cont.; publication being Emmerich de Vattel’s, “The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law Applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns”, and specifically;
BOOK I. OF NATIONS CONSIDERED IN THEMSELVES. CHAP. I. OF NATIONS OR SOVEREIGN STATES.§ 212. Citizens and natives. “The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on
Cont.;
their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”
Claimant submits further evidence of the Framers considerations and intent regarding the differing forms of Citizenship found within the Constitution;
Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (3 vols., 1833), of Joseph Story, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, February 3, 1812 – September 10, 1845
Volume 3: § 1473.
“It is indispensable, too, that the president should be a natural born citizen of the United States; or a citizen at the adoption of the constitution, and for fourteen years before his election. This permission of a naturalized citizen to become president is an exception from the great fundamental policy of all governments, to exclude foreign influence from their executive councils and duties. It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct) out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honours in their adopted country. A positive exclusion of them from the office would have been unjust to their merits, and painful to their sensibilities. But the general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely be doubted by any sound statesman. It cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which have inflicted the most serious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe. Germany, Poland, and even the pontificate of Rome, are sad, but instructive examples of the enduring mischiefs arising from this source. A residence of fourteen years in the United States is also made an indispensable requisite for every candidate; so, that the people may have a full opportunity to know his character and merits, and that he may have mingled in the duties, and felt the interests, and understood the principles, and nourished the attachments, belonging to every citizen in a republican government. By “residence,” in the constitution, is to be understood, not an absolute inhabitancy within the United States during the whole period; but such an inhabitancy, as includes a permanent domicil in the United States. No one has supposed, that a temporary absence abroad on public business, and especially on an embassy to a foreign nation, would interrupt the residence of a citizen, so as to disqualify him for office. If the word were to be construed with such strictness, then a mere journey through any foreign adjacent territory for health, or for pleasure, or a commorancy there for a single day, would amount to a disqualification. Under such a construction a military or civil officer, who should have been in Canada during the late war on public business, would have lost his eligibility. The true sense of residence in the constitution is fixed domicil, or being out of the United States, and settled abroad for the purpose of general inhabitancy, animo manendi, and not for a mere temporary and fugitive purpose, in transitu.”
The entire text of the Chapter is included herein to show that Associate Justice Joseph Story touched upon many of the circumstances of Citizenship as they occur in the political and natural world and how they ought be regarded when making Uniform Laws of Naturalization of which many are to be found in the full volumes of Vattel.
Specifically Claimant points to the parenthetical passage,
“…for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct…”
in support of Claimants assertion of the intended definition of “natural born citizen”.
Whereas ALL first Citizens of the United States of America were necessarily Naturalized by the Ratification of the Constitution and therefore the exception allowing for those of that generation to be eligible for the Executive Office as Naturalized Citizens noting that, in the authors words, “will soon become wholly extinct”, thereby meaning that as that generation of First Citizens passed it would devolve to the Second Generation of those Citizens to be the eligible Natural Born Citizens, this conforming with Vattel’s definition noted above and as also considered in the House of Representatives as found in; The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution
[Elliot's debates,Volume4]Seamen’s Bill.–For the Regulation of Seamen on Board the Public Vessels, and in the Merchant Service of the United States. House of Representatives, February, 1813.
Mr. ARCHER. “The framers of our Constitution did not intend to confine Congress to the technical meaning of the word naturalization, in the exercise of that power–the more especially when the comprehensive word rule was made use of. The principle upon which the power was to be exercised was left to the judicious exercise of Congress; all that was required was, that the rule should be uniform throughout the states. In the grant there is no other specification, as to the exercise of it, than that of its uniformity. The term naturalization was borrowed from England. It must be understood here in the sense and meaning which was, there attached to it. Whether it was absolute or qualified, it was still a naturalization. But the grant of a power in general terms necessarily implied the right to exercise that power in all its gradations. It Was in the political as it was in the natural world: the genus included the species. Besides, the power to naturalize was an attribute to sovereignty. It was either absolute or qualified; and if the grant to Congress only implied a power of unlimited naturalization, the power to qualify existed in the states or in the people, for what was not specifically granted was reserved.
In treating of the executive power, the Constitution defines the qualifications of the President. It declares that he should be a natural-born citizen, or a citizen at the adoption of the Constitution. This article is unquestionably no limitation of the power of Congress upon the subject of naturalization. It was impossible to abridge a specific grant of power without a specific limitation, and the article alluded to could not be tortured, by the most ingenious mind, to diminish, even by implication, the authority of Congress upon a subject to which it was totally irrelevant.” Claimant asserts that the “genus” mentioned in the first paragraph is referring to the First Naturalized Citizens as being the natural born citizens and that the “species” are the thereafter naturalized citizens who, with time and circumstance, beget their own natural born citizens, increasing the ‘genus’, in keeping with the political and natural world. In the second paragraph Mr. Archer acknowledges that the Congress has no mandate to ‘abridge’ the authority of Article II Section I Clause V and thereby the inability of the Congress to politically ‘limit’ nature in the performance of the mandate to promulgate laws of naturalization. Neither the Fourteenth Amendment or the Nineteenth Amendment abridged, nullified or amended Article II Section I Clause V, neither do their words say so nor do their words require it. In the former case the source of future natural born citizens was increased and in the latter the source of conferring citizenship, which had been wholly of the father, was then split equally amongst the two parents.
The chief author of the 14th Amendment, Sen. John A. Bingham, wrote,
“…[E]very human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen,’”
Therein is read, “Parents”, being plural and after the Nineteenth Amendment, with each “not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty”, which implies domestic domicile and being naturalized or otherwise, for how else could the conditions and circumstances be examined. That the source of the subject of ‘natural born citizen’ is found in the Constitutional Articles concerning the executive offices of the Government does not exclude it or diminish it in the concerns of the general population but rather elevates it to the most fundamental concerns of our Citizenry’s national allegiance, pride and protection of the nations sovereignty. The first duty of the Government and the Citizens thereof is to ‘Preserve, Protect and Defend’ the Constitution of the United States of America. That the Government is ‘of the People, by the People and for the People’ it can not be denied and must be hoped that those People with the greatest understanding, the greatest regard, the greatest interest, and the greatest allegiance to the Nation are those who have longest been bound and blessed by the liberties shared as contemplated by Vattel;
“…The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it…”

JURISDICTION AND VENUE

1. This case involves diversity of citizenship and this Court has jurisdiction pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. §1343 (a)(4), and/or, § 1346 (a)(2), and/or § 1357
2. This case further arises under the Constitution and laws of the United States and presents a federal question within this Court’s jurisdiction under Article III of the Constitution and 28 U.S.C. § 1331.
3. Venue is proper in this Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e)(3).
The issue of who is a “natural born citizen” under Article 2 Section 1 Clause 5 is an issue of legal interpretation outside the Constitutional authority of Congress. Only the judicial branch can interpret the laws of this nation.

III. PARTIES

4. Plaintiff, Steven Lee Craig
1309 Hisel Rd.
Del City, OK 73115
10. Defendant, The United States of America

FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

VIOLATIONS OF THE FOURTH, EIGHTH, NINTH, TENTH AND FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUION
Claimant incorporates by reference all of the foregoing allegations as if set forth herein at length.
Claimant alleges that the United States of America and, specifically, the Representatives elected, appointed or otherwise engaged in the publics trust, have failed to Preserve, Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States of America and the Amendments thereto in overt acts of lack of defense of the definition of Natural Born Citizen as a specific form of Citizenship acknowledged within the Constitution and the preservation of the original intent of its usage in the Constitution and its protection in its relation to the term of Citizen(s), found within the same Article of the Constitution and elsewhere, thereby violating Claimants Ninth and Tenth Amendment Rights of equal protection.
Marbury v. Madison 5 U.S. 1 Cranch 137 pg 174;
“It cannot be presumed that any clause in the Constitution is intended to be without effect, ……”
Elk Grove Unified School District et al v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004).
Justice O’Connor, concurring in the opinion;
“There are no de minimis violations of the Constitution — no constitutional harms so slight that the courts are obliged to ignore them”.
Griswold v. Connecticut 381 U.S. 479
“The language and history of the Ninth Amendment reveal that the Framers of the Constitution believed that there are additional fundamental rights, protected from governmental infringement, which exist alongside those fundamental rights specifically mentioned in the first eight constitutional amendments. . . . Moreover, a judicial construction that this fundamental right is not protected by the Constitution because it is not mentioned in explicit terms by one of the first eight amendments or elsewhere in the Constitution would violate the Ninth Amendment.
Nor do I mean to state that the Ninth Amendment constitutes an independent source of right protected from infringement by either the States or the Federal Government. Rather, the Ninth Amendment shows a belief of the Constitution’s authors that fundamental rights exist that are not expressly enumerated in the first eight amendments and an intent that the list of rights included there not be deemed exhaustive.”
United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 124 (1941).
“While the Tenth Amendment has been characterized as a ‘truism,” stating merely that ‘all is retained which has not been surrendered,’ [citing Darby], it is not without significance. Although the Tenth Amendment has seldom been used to assert and/or exert a personal reserved power the Claimant, nevertheless, asserts the ‘reserved power’, individually as one of the People, granted by the Tenth Amendment for retaining that which has not been surrendered; that being the Constitutionally recognized circumstance, of the political and of nature, that confers the naturalness of a natural born citizen.
Claimant alleges said lack of definition of Natural Born Citizen violates Claimants Fifth Amendment Rights of Due Process of the Law in that the Claimants intrinsic personal property guaranteed by the Ratification of the Constitution and enunciated as a form of American Citizenship, natural born citizen, having not been duly codified as have the numerous Laws promulgated that provide for the Naturalizing of new Citizens, thereby deprives and denies the Claimant of his rights and privileges of claiming the natural inheritance as a Citizen born of multiple generations of Citizens as contemplated by the distinctions of Citizenship within the Constitution.
Claimant alleges that the United States of America and, specifically, the Representatives elected, appointed or otherwise engaged in the publics trust and in the performance of their mandate to make uniform the Laws of Naturalization have been discriminatory in that the form of Citizenship, natural born citizen, has been ‘excluded and omitted’ while every circumstance, situation, happenstance, possibility and probability of Naturalization of new Citizens has been and continues to be Codified and / or adjudicated. Claimant alleges that unequal treatment has occurred against the Claimants intrinsic personal property guaranteed by the Ratification of the Constitution by the United States of America and, specifically, the Representatives elected, appointed or otherwise engaged in the publics trust in performance of its mandate to make uniform the Laws of Naturalization, by the “exclusion and omission” of the definition and acknowledgement of that citizenship known as natural born citizen within any and all the Acts, Bills, Laws, Rules and / or Regulations hereto promulgated regarding Citizenship and Naturalization. Currin v. Wallace, 306 U.S. 1 (1939)
“The Constitution has never been regarded as denying to the Congress the necessary resources of flexibility and practicality which will enable it to perform its function in laying down policies and establishing standards while leaving to selected instrumentalities the making of subordinate rules within prescribed limits and the determination of facts to which the policy as declared by the Legislature is to apply. Without capacity to give authorizations of that sort, we should have the anomaly of a legislative power which in many circumstances calling for its exertion would be but a futility.”
United States v. Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE HARLAN dissenting. (re: 14th Amendment)
“Nobody can deny that the question of citizenship in a nation is of the most vital importance. It is a precious heritage, as well as an inestimable acquisition, and I cannot think that any safeguard surrounding it was intended to be thrown down by the amendment.”
Claimant alleges that, upon recounting the 222 years of Legislation regarding Citizenship and Naturalization it amounts to a gross negligence of the United States of America and, specifically, the Representatives elected, appointed or otherwise engaged in the publics trust, in the performance of the mandates to Legislate and then delegate administrations the Legislated Laws making Naturalization uniform without looking to the Constitutional forms of Citizenship found within the Constitution its self, Article II Section I Clause V, and the intent of the distinctions thereof, thereby denying Claimant of his rights and privileges of the American form of Citizenship, natural born Citizen, without due process and with discriminatory Un-Uniform promulgation of Naturalization Laws.
Perez v. Brownell 356 U.S. 44
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
“…By the early 1930’s, the American law on nationality, including naturalization and denationalization, was expressed in a large number of provisions scattered throughout the statute books. Some of the specific laws enacted at different times seemed inconsistent with others, some problems of growing importance had emerged that Congress had left unheeded. At the request of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, see 86 Cong.Rec. 11943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established a Committee composed of the Secretary of State, [p53] the Attorney General and the Secretary of Labor to review the nationality laws of the United States, to recommend revisions and to codify the nationality laws into one comprehensive statute for submission to Congress; he expressed particular concern about “existing discriminations” in the law. Exec.Order No. 6115, Apr. 25, 1933…”
Claimant alleges that the United States of America and, specifically, the Representatives elected, appointed or otherwise engaged in the publics trust, in having violated Claimants Fourth Amendment Rights by extension have violated Claimants Eighth Amendment Rights against cruel and unusual punishment in that denying Claimant of that natural portion of Claimants American Constitutionally Guaranteed Citizenship Rights andPrivileges have imposed upon Claimant a penalty of separation from the Constitution and the internalized allegiance derived from the Claimants asserted definition of ‘natural born citizen”.
Trop v. Dulles 356 U.S. 86
We believe, as did Chief Judge Clark in the court below, [n33] that use of denationalization as a punishment is barred by the Eighth Amendment. There may be involved no physical mistreatment, no primitive torture. There is, instead, the total destruction of the individual’s status in organized society. It is a form of punishment more primitive than torture, for it destroys for the individual the political existence that was centuries in the development. The punishment strips the citizen of his status in the national and international political community. His very existence is at the sufferance of the country in which he happens to find himself. While any one country may accord him some rights and, presumably, as long as he remained in this country, he would enjoy the limited rights of an alien, no country need do so, because he is stateless. Furthermore, his enjoyment of even the limited rights of an alien might be subject to termination [p102] at any time by reason of deportation. [n34] In short, the expatriate has lost the right to have rights. This punishment is offensive to cardinal principles for which the Constitution stands. It subjects the individual to a fate of ever-increasing fear and distress. He knows not what discriminations may be established against him, what proscriptions may be directed against him, and when and for what cause his existence in his native land may be terminated. He may be subject to banishment, a fate universally decried by civilized people. He is stateless, a condition deplored in the international community of democracies. [n35] It is no answer to suggest that all the disastrous consequences of this fate may not be brought to bear on a stateless person. The threat makes the punishment obnoxious. [n36]
… When it appears that an Act of Congress conflicts with one of these provisions, we have no choice but to enforce the paramount commands of the Constitution. We are sworn to do no less. We cannot push back the limits of the Constitution merely to accommodate challenged legislation. We must apply those limits as the Constitution prescribes them, bearing in mind both the broad scope of legislative discretion and the ultimate responsibility of constitutional adjudication. We do well to approach this task cautiously, as all our predecessors have counseled. But the ordeal of judgment cannot be shirked. “Denationalization, being a “punishment more primitive than torture,”, then is not denying that natural portion of citizenship, that portion which is required to make one eligible to the highest office of the land, no less than a severing of generational ties and an involuntary amputation upon that Citizenship?
WHEREFORE Plaintiff request, on any one or all alligations, the same:
1. An immediate Order of Declaratory Judgement expressing Courts Opinion of the Constitutional and Legal Definition of “Natural born Citizen”.
2. Entry of Judgment
By leave of the Court I pray it be so ordered
Pro Se, In Forma Pauperis
_________________________
Steven Lee Craig
1309 Hisel Rd.
Del City, Oklahoma 73115
(405) 670-1784

« CRAIG V. US – 10th Circuit Court of Appeals – HELD (08.05.2009): 14th Amendment native born citizens have no Constitutional right to natural born citizen status. (SITE NOTE: The significance is that very few dispute that Obama is a "native born citizen" born in Hawaii to ONE American parent, but the dispute is that as a dual citizen, he was NOT a "natural born citizen.")

The Holy Grail of POTUS Eligibility Law Review Articles: Mr. Obama and Mr. Arthur… Meet Attorney George Collins

Rarely, when conducting legal research does one find a historical document that is directly on point. But even more rare is to find a document which is directly on point multiple times. But that's exactly what has happened this week. A historical document which destroys every bogus point being made by Obama POTUS eligibility supporters was recently discovered by a cracker jack team of university students from UCONN. They call themselves UNDEAD REVOLUTION.

They have been sending me good stuff for quite a while now. A wonderful contributor to comments at this blog – Kamira – is part of that team. This group is preparing the mother of all natural born citizen research reports based upon their unique historical document discoveries. It will be guest blogged by them right here when it's ready for public consumption.

But for now, and as a lead in to their work, I offer you one of their superb historical finds. It's an article from The American Law Reviewdated Sept./Oct. 1884. The American Law Review was a premier legal journal - the brain child of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes. The article I am about to show you was published in The American Law Review, written by George D. Collins, Esq. Attorney Collins was the Secretary of the California Bar Association in the 1880s. His name was recognized nationally for cases in the federal courts and moreso due to his regular publishing of articles via The American Law review.

The article I am excited to bring you is titled: ARE PERSONS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES IPSO FACTO CITIZENS THEREOF?

The article provides historical opposition for every single point raised by Obama eligibility pundits and destroys all propaganda in its path. The article is written in a clear and concise manner, easily understood by lawyers and lay persons alike. I will now introduce each relevant issue confronted in this article and then present the article in full for your review.

OBAMA POTUS ELIGIBILITY MYTHS DESTROYED BY MR. GEORGE COLLINS

MYTH #1: Chester Arthur's British birth was known and accepted by the American people.

This article was written in Summer 1884, while Chester Arthur was still President. Since The American Law Review was such an esteemed legal publication, old Chester must have been somewhat intimidated by the report of Mr. Collins. This is because the article makes perfectly clear that to be a natural born citizen one must have been born to a US citizen father.

Chester's father William was not naturalized until 1843, 14 years after Chester was born. This meant that Chester Arthur was a British subject at birth and was therefore not eligible to be President as was first reported at this blog back in December 2008.

It has been argued that Chester Arthur's occupation of the White House set a legal precedent for Obama since both Chester and Barack were born of British fathers. But the public – at the time Chester was running for VP and later when he became POTUS – never knew that Chester Arthur was a British subject since he successfully lied to the public about his parental heritage.

The law review article goes into great detail concerning the issue of who exactly rises to the level of natural born citizen. It discusses law cases and legal precedent in its analysis, but it does not even mention the current President – Chester Arthur – even though Attorney Collins steadfastly denies that a person born on US soil to an alien father could be a natural born citizen.

If Attorney Collins – esteemed lawyer, Secretary of the Bar Association and nationally known legal journalist – had thought his current President at the time this article was published – Chester Arthur – was a British subject at birth, then the article would have required a discussion of that point.

But the article does not mention President Chester Arthur because Chester Arthur managed – through blatant deceit - to cover that issue up. He successfully concealed his British birth from the American people. This law review article is proof of that conclusion. (SITE NOTE: The obvious parallel is that Obama is doing the same as Chester Arthur using "blatant deceit.")

MYTH #2: Lynch v. Clark ( a New York State case, not federal) is legal precedent for Obama to be considered a natural born citizen.

Despite the fact that state court cases have absolutely no legal weight of authority in federal court, Obama eligibility supporters cite this case often. Attorney Collins tears the decision to shreds and exposes its faulty conclusions.

MYTH #3: Common law states that being born on the soil – Jus Soli – makes one a "natural born subject" and therefore every person born on US soil is a "natural born citizen".

Attorney Collins takes this on directly and establishes clearly that there is no common law in the United States. He also explains that natural born citizens are in no way, shape or form, the same as natural born subjects.

MYTH #4: Vattell's definition of a natural born citizen was not considered by the framers.

Attorney Collins discusses Vattell in great detail. And Collins agrees that to be a natural born citizen one must be born on the soil of parents who were themselves citizens. Collins quotes Vattell.

But more important is the fact that Collins makes it clear Vattell's definition of "natural born citizen" was not actually Vattell's definition. This is very important.

The definition of "natural born citizen" was not created by Vattell in his treatise, "Law of Nations." That treatise simply discussed the established body of law known as "the law of nations". The definition of natural born citizen discussed in Vattell's treatise was actually the definition established by the body of law known as "law of nations". Attorney Collins makes all of this quite clear in the article below. Now please review Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution:

The Congress shall have power…To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the Law of Nations;

The capital letters are not in reference to Vattell's treatise, but theyare in reference to the body of law Vattell wrote about – the actual "law of nations". And that body of law - according to Attorney Collins as well as Vattell – held that a "natural born citizen" was somebody with connections to the nation for having been born on the soil as well as having been born of citizen parents. In Article 1, Section 8, we therefore have a direct recognition that the framers respected the law of nations.

DOUBLE ALLEGIANCE TO THE NATION

This is what the framers required for the Commander In Chief. Any child of immigrants from any nation could become President – as long as his parents became naturalized US citizens before that child was born on US soil. In their wisdom, the framers sought two generations of US citizenship. This discriminates against no race at all.

To be an American has nothing to do with race. It has to do with being a person cloaked in liberty – free from monarchy, free of repression, free forever.

The natural born citizen clause does not establish a superior form of citizenship. It does establish a national security safeguard against foreign invasion of the White House and takeover of the US Armed Forces.

It makes all the sense in the world that the person who holds the keys to the massive nuclear arsenal in our possession should be born on US soil to parents who were citizens.

If we allow persons born in the US of alien fathers to be President of the US then Kim Jong Il, Osama Bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are all eligible to have their direct offspring become President of the United States and Commander In Chief of our Armed Forces.

That is what you are saying if you think Obama is eligible to be President.

You can't discriminate based on race or nationality in this country. If a person whose father was not a US citizen at the time of his birth can become President, then it doesn't matter what nation that person is a dual citizen of.

This is the main issue and main reason why I have dedicated so much of my time to this situation. I am no more worried about Obama than I was about Bush or Clinton. I see all of them as having struck horrific blows against US sovereignty. But I am seriously worried about who comes next. Who is being groomed as a Manchurian candidate as we speak?

If Obama is eligible to be President, then the sons of every despicable despot are also eligible.

It's not like North Korea, Saudi Arabia or Iran are going to let the sons of US citizens lead their countries anytime soon. Are we really going to allow their sons to lead our nation? The framers would never have allowed such a horrific situation to exist. With the natural born citizen clause they protected us against this very scenario. We must protect the protection.

A legal fraud is being perpetrated upon this nation through ridicule and straight up major media propaganda.

The great weight of authority indicates Obama is not eligible to be President, but we are losing the PR war.

I recognize arguments which take issue with some of the conclusions below. But the point is urgently made that this issue is not settled and has never been directly adjudicated by a federal court. Such adjudication is the necessary outcome of this debate.

I hope the following piece of history serves as a wake up call to the snarky sarcasm being leveled at this very serious legal question. There is nothing funny about this issue. The repercussions for generations to come are potentially disastrous.

Here is the George D. Collins article: Are Persons Born Within the United States Ipso Facto Citizens Thereof – George D. Collins. (Source: Natural Born Citizen.)

Presidential aspirants not born in the United States:

The Constitution provides: "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."

During the last presidential election, some people suggested that John McCain was not eligible for the presidency, because he was born in the Canal Zone. Radio Free Europe (Russian language station) interviewed me about the controversy last year. NY Times story here. The issue got serious enough so that Congress passed a resolution saying

I remember that during the 1968 presidential election, there was controversy about the eligibility of Michigan Governor George Romney, who was the GOP frontrunner for a while. Romney (father of the current GOP frontrunner) had been born in Mexico to U.S. citizens who were living in a LDS colony there.

A 1988 Note in the Yale Law Journal about the NBC clause states: "This constitutional uncertainty persists despite the fact that the issue has arisen frequently over the past twenty years in discussions over the potential candidacies of foreign-born politicians such as Barry Goldwater, Lowell Weicker, George Romney, Christian D. Herter, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. Goldwater was born in the territory of Arizona before it became a state; Weicker, in Paris of an American father and British mother; Romney, of American parents in Mexico; Herter, of Americans in France; Roosevelt, in Canada." Note, Jill A. Pryor, "The Natural-Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach for Resolving Two Hundred Years of Uncertainty," 97 Yale Law Journal 881 (1988).

Can commenters provide other examples of previous presidents or presidential aspirants regarding whom the "natural born Citizen" clause was raised? My guess is that the current crowd of Obama birthers may be part of a broader tradition in American history than is currently recognized. If you are really diligent, see footnote 2 of the Yale note for some citations to older law review articles (not available on Westlaw) which may have some more examples.

If we look back further into our Anglo-American history, in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when William & Mary drove out the wicked James Stuart, we find that when William of Orange set sail for England, "William made no claim on his own behalf, but called only for a free Parliament and a study of whether James II's new son really was a son or had been smuggled into the birthing room in a warming pan." Kopel, "It Isn't About Duck Hunting: The British Origins of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms." Review of Joyce Malcolm's book To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right. 96 Michigan Law Review 1333 (1995).

The historical cases are interesting to consider because they provide some perspective on the current claims that the birthers are active only because Obama is biracial. Historically, one can find some analogues; I saw enough anti-LDS prejudice during Mitt Romney's 2007-08 presidential campaign to indicate that religious bigotry might have played a role in George Romney birtherism. Unquestionably the concern of the James II birthers was not worry that the James Stuart (who was Catholic) had a low sperm count, but fear of his efforts to replace Protestant England's mixed form of government with absolutism modeled on Catholic, hyper-centralized France. However, for many of the other instances of birtherism (McCain, Weicker, Goldwater, Roosevelt, etc.), it is hard to see any angle involving racial or religious prejudice.

Chester Alan Arthur: The Barack Obama of the 19th Century:

Thanks to some comments in my previous post on presidential aspirants and citizenship, I found some interesting facts about Chester Alan Arthur, who served as President in 1881-85, succeeding to the office after the assassination of James Garfield.

Arthur's father was an Irishman who moved to Canada. There, he eloped with an American woman from Vermont. Canada and Ireland were, at the time, under the government of the United Kingdom. The couple had several children, including Chester. The father did not become a naturalized American citizen until long after Chester's birth.

During the 1880 presidential campaign, Democrats hired Wall Street lawyer Arthur P. Hinman to investigate Arthur's background. Hinman released his findings to the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper during the campaign, and later wrote a book, How a British subject became president of the United States (1884).

Hinman contended that Arthur had been born in Canada, and was thus constitutionally ineligible to be Vice-President or President. (REDACTED) (The Natural Born Citizen clause, however, applies only to who "shall be eligible to the Office of President." It does not, on its face, apply to the Vice Presidency. The clause of course reflects the original system of presidential elections, by which the electors cast two ballots, and whoever came in second became Vice President. The 12th Amendment changed that system, but did not revise the NBC clause accordingly.)

Arthur specifically denied the claim, and said that he had been born in Vermont. There was apparently no birth certificate, since such certificates were not used in many areas at the time that Arthur was born.

Later biographers have concluded that Arthur lied about his own age, and perhaps about various aspects of his father's life. The American people obviously made a political judgement, in electing Garfield-Arthur, that they either did not believe the charge of Canadian birth, or did not care about it.

Personally, I probably would have voted for the Democratic nominee, Winfield Scott Hancock, a man of impeccable integrity and great regard for constitutional rights. He lost the popular vote to Garfield by few than 10,000 votes. In 1881, Hancock became President of the National Rifle Association. (Following in the footsteps of Ulysses Grant, who served as NRA President after serving two terms as United States President.)

In any case, the existence of the Arthur controversy is an example of political opponents raising questions about whether a president was really a natural born citizen, and raising such questions for reasons other than racism.

(Source: Volokh.com.)

Before anyone criticizes the "natural born citizen" clause of the Constitution (by calling it the 'stupidest provision' in the constitution), they need to know that it was this clause all alone and by itself that was used by Congress to wipe out millions of dollars of property held by slave owners, and eliminate slavery within the jurisdiction of the United States, as witnessed by the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the "Citizenship Clause" in Sec. 1 of the 14th Amendment.

You see, Congress always had the right to regulate "naturalization," but slaves were not "foreigners," so their authority to regulate naturalization did not apply. It was only the "natural born citizen" qualification, in order to be President of the United States that offered Congress the leverage to abolish slavery, and they used it to the fullest extent that they could, on the logic that all former slaves were "natural born," and therefore had to be "citizens." (Decided in U. S. vs. Rhodes (1866))

Justice Rehnquist noted in the Constitution, "a political document noted for its brevity," that there are 11 instances addressing the "citizen-alien" distinction: Art. 1, S 2, C 2; S 3, C , S 8, C 4; Art. 2, S 1, C 5, Art. 3, S 2, C 1; Art. 4, S 2, C 1, and in the 11th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th