Posted on 10/24/2008 7:31:37 AM PDT by presidio9
IF MONTGOMERY County lawyer Phil Berg has his way, Barack Obama won't be on the ballot on Nov. 4.
And if Berg's right, Obama could be struck from the ballot as soon as today.
Talk about an October surprise!
In August, Berg filed a federal suit alleging that the Democratic presidential candidate was not born in Hawaii, but in Kenya, and is not even an American citizen, but a citizen of Indonesia.
U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick has not ruled on the merits of Berg's suit, although he did deny Berg's request for a temporary restraining order.
This week Berg asked that his allegations against Obama be "admitted" since Obama had failed to respond within the 30-day time limit.
Berg's suit has been hot stuff in the right-wing blogosphere for a while.
Several similar suits have followed Berg's, including one in Washington state this week and one in Hawaii last week challenging that state's privacy law, which prevents officials from making the original birth certificate public.
Mike Finney, deputy clerk to Judge Surrick, says that their office has gotten a blizzard of phone calls about the suit.
"Within the past week the calls have instensified," Finney told us. "People from all across the country have been calling." He said we should expect a ruling soon.
Berg failed to return our calls, but he is no stranger to Clout.
In 1998, when he launched a run for governor against Tom Ridge, we offered this slogan: "Those who think Ridge is unsinkable should know there's a Berg up ahead."
He promptly printed it on campaign buttons, becoming the only politician ever to take advice from Clout. It was clearly a danger sign.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Berg established a Web site accusing the government of either planning the attacks or knowing about them in advance.
To fight the birth rumors, the Obama camp posted a document issued by Hawaii confirming his birth there. Critics call it a forgery, although the nonpartisan FactCheck.org examined the original document and declared it legit.
Also worth noting is a birth announcement in the Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961, Honolulu Advertiser listing Obama's birth there on Aug. 4.
Of course, it is possible that Obama's family, knowing he would seek the presidency one day, planted a false announcement.
And, if you enjoy conspiracies, isn't it interesting that Obama is cutting short his campaigning this week to visit his grandmother in Hawaii?
Is she really sick? Or is he trying to keep her quiet? Or is this silly stuff going to be kicked out of court forcing us to find better material next week?
Obama and the Phillies
Obama's declaration during the NL Championship Series that he was rooting for the Phillies prompted Todd Bernstein to produce the T-shirt you see on this page.
His inspiration goes back to 1992, when he was an aide to then-senator Harris Wofford, D-Pa., and they were campaigning for Bill Clinton in Colorado.
"In the Denver campaign office someone had a T-shirt that had Clinton-Gore with the Broncos logo and on the back, it said, 'Go Clinton! Go Broncos!' " Bernstein recalled. "I thought I'd like to do that back home when the time was right.
"It took 16 years for the stars to be aligned with Barack Obama and the Philadelphia Phillies."
Bernstein, who heads the Martin Luther King Day of Service project, made some up for his friends.
"Then more people started asking about it, so I made more, and then other people began hounding me and now I'm in the rag business," he said.
Bernstein is up to several hundred shirts by now, but says he doesn't want any more requests, which is why we're not printing his e-mail address.
Tayoun: Sales pitch
Obama's Pennsylvania political director, Kevin Washo, was sipping on a beer at the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee dinner Monday night, when someone introduced him to former Councilman and ward leader Jimmy Tayoun, now publisher of the weekly paper ThePublic Record.
"Will you guys buy a friggin' ad in my newspaper?" Tayoun said, as he shook Washo's hand. "Every committeeman in the city gets a copy of it."
We checked in with Tayoun at week's end, and he's still got zippo from the Big O.
Goo-goo: Street money is good
Ward leaders aren't the only ones who think Obama should pay "street money" to Philly's Democratic organization for Election Day turnout.
Marc Stier, a former City Council candidate and good-government type who's active in Neighborhood Network - a grassroots organization that many ward leaders regard as a threat - says that Obama should pay the machine.
"We're seeing an enormous number of Obama volunteers coming here who don't know the territory they're working," Stier said. "They don't know much about the voters they're talking to, and they don't know practical things, like where to rent a room for canvassers, something a ward leader can help with."
Stier said that it's true that most voters don't seek ward leaders' advice on presidential votes, but "in some parts of the city where voters may be a little uncertain, a word from a committee person they've known for years can make a difference."
O'Brien: A Repubmocrat?
When party chairman Bob Brady called Democratic candidates up to the stage at Monday's party pep rally, Clout did a double-take.
Is that House Speaker Dennis O'Brien, a Republican, up there?
Indeed.
Turns out that while running unopposed in the Republican primary in April, O'Brien also ran a successful write-in campaign to get on the Democratic ballot, too. So he's technically a Democratic candidate.
Does that mean O'Brien, who was also elected speaker with Democratic support, backs Obama? O'Brien would say only that he's "a proud Republican." *
Secretaries of State do not vet candidates for eligibility - the Parties do. Who knows how many other candidates have “problems”. A major flaw in the election process has been discovered.
...and the mods allow the thread/posting to remain.
Are Michelle and the children in Hawaii also visiting with their gravely ill grandmother? Maybe the children should’nt be pulled out of school?
I pray that enough people wise up before the election and that we do just that.
just curious — but aren’t the ballots already printed up? Doubt if they’d be reprinted either even if he were “removed” by judicial order.
I absolutely agree with you.
Putting Palin or McCain on the attack just sets them up for quid pro quo. And frankly, I’m sick of the back and forth. Gets no where.
But, keep running stuff straight from the horse’s mouth, they’ve got no where to go.
Order not signed. Until it is, it’s just a piece of paper presented by an attorney to the court for consideration.
— Jane
Amen, brother!
Amen, brother!
Also note that the state of Hawaii allows ‘any adult’ to register the birth of one of it’s resident’s born out of state or out of country.
Also note newspapers in multiple cities or countries can announce the birth of a child born in New York, Chicago, or any location.
The clipping, if it is not another false reproduction, gives no location or other information about the birth.
Of course, it is possible that Obama's family, knowing he would seek the presidency one day, planted a false announcement.
See above: That one's gonna be hard to explain away.
That could have been faxed from a Kinko’s in Texas. It might have been in the newspaper but who knows if it really was? I threw away that edition.
Good point. Berg said he thinks the GOP is waiting til the last minute to drop a bomb on Obamabi. I hope they don’t play it too close. Berg was worried the GOp was waiting too long.
This Hillary for Obama switcheroo would be incredible. It would start WW3 in the Dem Party.
But which hospital? It's been reported that he was born in both Queens Hospital and in Kapiolani Hospital. It's in the Berg motion which can be found here.
...”it’s just a piece of paper presented by an attorney to the court for consideration.”
I don’t understand, of course, I’m no lawyer either, but I’ve never heard of a lawyer writing a Judge’s order for the Judge to sign. Doesn’t the Judge write the order himself?
I don’t expect the GOP has any “gotcha bombs to drop”...McCain just would not allow it!
In 1961, the Dunhams would have been intelligent enough to want their only grandchild to have US citizenship and the opportunites of all the benefits. Hawaii makes it very simple & easy to register out of state birth’s for any resident who resided there for a 12 month period.
You rent an apt. in Hawaii for a year, have a baby in Paris and any adult that you know in Hawaii could submit paperwork to have the Hawaiin Dept. of Health create a Hawaiin COLB for the tot.
Is there verification that the ‘clipping’ exist on microfiche?
Others here have reproduced the ‘clipping’ perfectly with names like ‘Harvey’ and it is impossible to tell which is real.
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