Posted on 10/25/2008 7:58:24 AM PDT by Technical Editor
Saturday, October 25, 2008 Lawsuit Against Obama Dismissed from Philadelphia Federal Court
The order came down at approximately 6:15 p.m. on Friday. Philip Berg's lawsuit challenging Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility to serve as president of the United States had been dismissed by the Hon. R. Barclay Surrick on grounds that the Philadelphia attorney and former Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania lacked standing.
Surrick, it seemed, was not satisfied with the nature of evidence provided by Berg to support his allegations.
Various accounts, details and ambiguities from Obama’s childhood form the basis of Plaintiff’s allegation that Obama is not a natural born citizen of the United States. To support his contention, Plaintiff cites sources as varied as the Rainbow Edition News Letter … and the television news tabloid Inside Edition. These sources and others lead Plaintiff to conclude that Obama is either a citizen of his father’s native Kenya, by birth there or through operation of U.S. law; or that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia by relinquishing his prior citizenship (American or Kenyan) when he moved there with his mother in 1967. Either way, in Plaintiff’s opinion, Obama does not have the requisite qualifications for the Presidency that the Natural Born Citizen Clause mandates. The Amended Complaint alleges that Obama has actively covered up this information and that the other named Defendants are complicit in Obama’s cover-up. A judge’s attitude toward the factual foundation of a plaintiff’s claims is an essential factor in understanding just who indeed has standing to sue. The question running to the heart of the standing doctrine is whether or not the plaintiff indeed has a personal stake in the outcome of the otherwise justiciable matter being adjudicated. As has been discussed before many times here at America’s Right, a plaintiff wishing to have standing to sue must show (1) a particularized injury-in-fact, (2) evidence showing that that the party being sued actually caused the plaintiff’s particularized injury-in-fact, and (3) that adjudication of the matter would actually provide redress.
In this case, Judge Surrick’s attitude toward the evidence presented by Berg to support his allegations figures in heavily because, while there is a three-pronged test to standing in itself, there is no definitive test by which the court can determine whether a certain harm is enough to satisfy the first element of that three-pronged test by showing true injury-in-fact. Traditionally, it hasn’t taken much to satisfy the need for an injury-in-fact, but as the plaintiff’s claimed injury is perceived as being more remote, more creative, or more speculative, the injury-in-fact requirement becomes more difficult to satisfy.
As it were, much of Berg’s basis for injury-in-fact could be considered threatened injury–he felt that the country was at risk for “voter disenfranchisement” and that America was certainly headed for a “constitutional crisis”—and, while threatened injury can certainly be injury enough to satisfy the injury-in-fact element, such satisfaction depends upon the threat being perceived by the judge as being not too creative, speculative or remote.
When it came to Philip Berg’s personal stake in the matter at hand, Judge Surrick compared his action with those of Fred Hollander—who sued Sen. John McCain in New Hampshire on grounds that, born in the Panama Canal Zone, he was not a natural born citizen—and held that Berg’s stake “is no greater and his status no more differentiated than that of millions of other voters.” The harm cited by Berg, Judge Surrick wrote, “is too vague and its effects too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters.”
So, who does have standing? According to the Hon. R. Barclay Surrick, that's completely up to Congress to decide.
If, through the political process, Congress determines that citizens, voters, or party members should police the Constitution’s eligibility requirements for the Presidency, then it is free to pass laws conferring standing on individuals like Plaintiff. Until that time, voters do not have standing to bring the sort of challenge that Plaintiff attempts to bring in the Amended Complaint. Judge Surrick not only dismissed Berg's case, but admonished the attorney in several spots in the 34-page memorandum. In one such instance, Judge Surrick noted that Berg had misinterpreted the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in asking the court to permit him to amend his complaint. The first amended complaint was deemed admitted by Judge Surrick on grounds that, under FRCP 15(a), a party can amend once so long as it’s done before being served with a responsive pleading and that, just as I had not-so-confidently suggested, the motion to dismiss filed on Sept. 24 by Obama and the DNC was not a responsive pleading. Because Berg perceived the motion to dismiss as a responsive pleading and was waiting on the court to grant or deny the motion for leave to amend, he did not serve the additional defendants added in the amended complaint. This, too, was noted by Surrick.
Berg’s attempts to distinguish his own case from Hollander were deemed by Judge Surrick to be “[h]is most reasonable arguments,” but his arguments citing statutory authority were said by the judge to be a venture “into the unreasonable” and were “frivolous and not worthy of discussion.” All in all, the judge wrote, it was the satisfaction of the injury-in-fact requirement which was the problem. Berg’s harm was simply too intangible.
…regardless of questions of causation, the grievance remains too generalized to establish the existence of an injury in fact. To reiterate: a candidate’s ineligibility under the Natural Born Citizen Clause does not result in an injury in fact to voters. By extension, the theoretical constitutional harm experienced by voters does not change as the candidacy of an allegedly ineligible candidate progresses from the primaries to the general election.
Berg, disappointed by the decision, plans to appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and then to the United States Supreme Court.
"This is a question of who has standing to stand up for our Constitution," Berg said. "If I don't have standing, if you don't have standing, if your neighbor doesn't have standing to ask whether or not the likely next president of the United States--the most powerful man in the entire world--is eligible to be in that office in the first place, then who does?"
The suits have been filed in state and federal courts in Hawaii, Washington, California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and Connecticut to compel Obama to release his birth records. Ohio was being added yesterday.
The precident has been set that the citizens have no standing.
It doesn’t technically matter WHO Berg is- and it doesn’t change the merits of his case. I’m just biased against anyone who believe the 9-11 truth crap.
But if you read the rest of my post- I am completely convinced Obama is lying about his birth and I agree with you- it’s a very simple matter for him- give the paper copy of his birth certificate to the press and satisfy those of us on the right-wing lunatic fringe ;)
When you were hired in the school system, did you have to show any form of IDs???
Then, since its release to the public four months ago, the image is still claimed to be Obama's "original birth certificate," which it absolutely is not because the original birth certificate looks nothing like the COLB.
There is one, and only, one reason why Obama has not shown either his "vault" birth certificate, a copy of his original birth certificate, or a current COLB:
The absence of a birth record means that Obama cannot prove that he was born in the U.S.A. -- the most important qualification for POTUS.
The battle over the birth certificate is still the #1 issue that will bring down Obama.
Sorry, didn’t mean to scorch you. I am just frustrated. It is not the fact that Obama is or isn’t telling lies, hiding facts of his birth, or anything else. It is the fact that he has come this far with no one vetting him.
I grieve for our country.
Why should I read some stinking blog!
It’s just some AHs personal rant.
My letter to George W. Bush:
Dear President Bush:
You are the Commander-in-Chief and chief law-enforcement officer of the United States, and I would urge you to immediately act according to your pledge to protect the Constitution: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
What I think is that you need to defend the United States from those who are trashing the Constitution.
I think you need to step forward and say that it is your responsibility to enforce the laws of the United States, that the Constitution is our most basic law, and further, that you will perform the constitutional test of Barack Obama’s candidacy for president yourself.
Mr. President, you have the power to do this. You are the chief enforcement officer of all the laws of the United States. Please do your duty to stop the trashing of our basic law.
You are the man who can make this thing right - at least until we get the judges, the media, and the people weaned off the Kool-Aid. Please let me know if I can help you in any way, but I need YOU to help our country - it’s either that or we can kiss it goodbye.
Sincerely,
(I signed with my complete contact information)
It's breathtaking, isn't it?
The appeals should be interesting.
I knew there were several others underway- I haven't read them, have you? Do any seem better suited for a favorable ruling?
Screw you AH!
There are currently lawsuits in nine different states on this subject. The lawsuits allege that the Secretaries of State failed to uphold their respective duties as the officials in charge of elections when they did not certify/verify that Barack Obama is eligible to be on the ballot as a presidential candidate.
I don’t know what will come from these suits, but I suspect that time is too short for anyone to do anything before the election. The ballots have been printed and distributed to all counties/cities. They cannot be reprinted and redistributed in time for the election.
Greta Van Sustren has publicly called for all of the candidates to release their birth certificates, but only because she’s sick of all of the e-mails on this subject.
Bill O’Reilly has called this issue “Internet garbage” and refuses to investigate it or even discuss it with Berg on the air.
:) No offense taken- and believe me, I share your frustration.
I knew I was in for some flaming this morning anyway- I flat out have problems with the people in the limelight bringing these issues to attention (Berg, Martin and Corsi).
Regardless- Obama has lied, is lying, and will continue to lie to us. And we watch grown adults who should know better get sucked in by him.
God help us.
How fast can we do a class action suit, asking everyone in the country to sign online somewhere if they want to know whether Barack H. Obama is eligible to be President of the United States of America by virtue of his natural birth?
I personally believe he was born in Hawaii and eligible, but I’d still like to know for sure.
I say, hell yes.
Would it be possible, if Obama won the election, for a strong red state to sue the federal government if they were being forced to have a President that did not meet the requirements to be President, under our great Constitution, upon which all our laws are based?
Bush will never do this. Not in a million years.
....."Remember the Obama girl from Texarkana being swept under the carpet....The Thought Police....
I want to file a counter complaint that false charges were made, that a false report was given to a peace officer. The Secret Service told me I cannot because they will protect the identity of the complainant. I also want the file they have on me destroyed and I want to know that my phone isn't tapped, etcetera. I am hearing a lot of 'Out of my Jurisdiction'.
Do I also hear jackboots?
Jessica Hughes Lufkin, Texas"
It is time to buy this book: Mark Levin authored the bestselling book, Men In Black: How The Supreme Court Is Destroying America (ISBN 0-89526-050-6), in which Levin claims that members of the judicial branch have "legislated from the bench."
(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.)
In the city of Al Capone everything is possible!
I assume he sneaked through the cracks by the help of that city's ilks because of the racist's "no-touch" issue and was accepted on face value!!
Has there ever been such a screwed up criminal offense in the history of our 230 (something) Presidential election with million$ of million$ of dollar$ unaccounted for from Islamic/Jihadists nations to tilt this election. It is mind boggling we allow this to happen to our country!!!
As a TEACHER..(?)...you just gave thousands of Freepers here the stamp that we are NOT respectable persons!!!
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