4um: Supremes to review Barack's citizenship - Case challenging his name on ballot set for 'conference'

A case that challenges President-elect Barack Obama's name on the 2008 election ballot citing questions over his citizenship has been scheduled for a "conference" at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Conferences are private meetings of the justices at which they review cases and decide which ones to accept for formal review. This case is set for a conference Dec. 5, just 10 days before the Electoral College is scheduled to meet to make formal the election of Obama as the nation's next president.

The Supreme Court's website listed the date for the case brought by Leo C. Donofrio against Nina Wells, the secretary of state in New Jersey, over not only Obama's name on the 2008 election ballot but those of two others, Sen. John McCain and Roger Calero.

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The case, unsuccessful at the state level, had been submitted to Justice David Souter, who rejected it. The case then was resubmitted to Justice Clarence Thomas. The next line on the court's docket says: "DISTRIBUTED for Conference of December 5, 2008."

If four of the nine justices vote to hear the case in full, oral argument may be scheduled.

The action questions whether any of the three candidates is qualified under the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural-born citizen."

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According to America's Right blogger Jeff Schreiber, there also was a development in a second case presented to the Supreme Court on the same issue.

His report said the Federal Election Commission now has waived its right to respond to a complaint brought by attorney Philip Berg.

"There are a number of reasons why the respondents here would choose not to respond. First, because the court only grants between 70 and 120 of the 8,000 or so petitions it receives every year, perhaps they just liked their odds of Berg's petition getting denied. Second, because they have made arguments as to Berg's lack of standing several times at the district court level and beyond, perhaps they felt as though any arguments had already been made and were available on the record. Or, perhaps the waiver shows that the FEC and other respondents do not take seriously the allegations put forth by Berg, and did not wish to legitimize the claims with a response," the blogger speculated.

"Another thing which is not completely clear is whether the FEC is filing for itself or on behalf of all respondents," he added.

"If it were just the FEC filing the waiver, I must say that I'm surprised," Berg told America's Right. "I'm surprised because I think they should take the position that the Supreme Court should grant standing to us. I think they have a responsibility not only to Phil Berg, but to all citizens of this country, to put forth a sense of balance which otherwise doesn't seem to exist.

"However, if this was filed by the FEC on behalf of the DNC and Barack Obama too, it reeks of collusion," he said, noting that the attorney from the solicitor general's office should be representing federal respondents and not the DNC or Obama.

But he noted that "questions surrounding this aspect of Obama's candidacy are seemingly beginning to see the light of day."

Just last week, WND reported on worries over a "constitutional crisis" that could be looming over the issue of Obama's citizenship.

Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others filed a court petition in California asking the secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office.

Alan Keyes

The disputes all cite "natural-born citizen" requirement set by the U.S. Constitution.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi even traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, simply hasn't ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?

Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born. There have been other allegations that Obama actually was born in Kenya during a time when his father was a British subject.

The California action was filed by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation on behalf of Keyes, the presidential candidate of the American Independent Party, along with Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, both California electors.

"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, Petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal," the action challenges.

An Obama spokesman interviewed by WND described such lawsuits as "garbage."

The popular vote Nov. 4 favored Obama over Sen. John McCain by several percentage points. But because of the distribution of the votes, Obama is projected to take the Electoral College vote, when it is held in December, by a 2-to-1 margin.

The California case states, "There is a reasonable and common expectation by the voters that to qualify for the ballot, the individuals running for office must meet minimum qualifications as outlined in the federal and state Constitutions and statutes, and that compliance with those minimum qualifications has been confirmed by the officials overseeing the election process," the complaint said, when in fact the only documentation currently required is a signed statement from the candidate attesting to those qualifications.

"Since [the secretary of state] has, as its core, the mission of certifying and establishing the validity of the election process, this writ seeks a Court Order barring SOS from certifying the California Electors until documentary proof that Senator Obama is a 'natural born' citizen of the United States of America is received by her," the document said.

"This proof could include items such as his original birth certificate, showing the name of the hospital and the name and the signature of the doctor, all of his passports with immigration stamps, and verification from the governments where the candidate has resided, verifying that he did not, and does not, hold citizenship of these countries, and any other documents that certify an individual’s citizenship and/or qualification for office.

The "certificate of live birth" posted by the Obama campaign cannot be viewed as authoritative, the case alleges.

"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," the document said. "The only way to know where Senator Obama was actually born is to view Senator Obama's original birth certificate from 1961 that shows the name of the hospital and the name and signature of the doctor that delivered him."

The case also raises the circumstances of Obama's time during his youth in Indonesia, where he was listed as having Indonesian citizenship. Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship, raising the possibility of Obama's mother having given up his U.S. citizenship.

Any subsequent U.S. citizenship then, the case claims, would be "naturalized," not "natural-born."

WND has reported other challenges that have been raised in Ohio, Connecticut, Washington, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Hawaii.

My suspicions were obviously correct. If your not a nationalist then get the fuck out. You are the problem not the solution. Only to stupid to know it. I know retards smarter then you with better morals.

Why? One parent was a foreigner, the other DID NOT stay in the US for the specified amount of time as prescribed by law to ensure natural born validity.

And if adopted by an Indonesian national, then to become an American again, he would end up in a naturalized citizen status.

However, most DO NOT care in the least, as the economy and hope crowd, many Americans would consider them nitpicking technicalities.

The kicker is that he could simply show the certificate. All doubt would go away.

The Republican Party doesn't seem to care too much, and IMO, they're probably setting the stage for a Schwarznegger bid.

Good observation. Also the GOP might not have wanted to be tarred and feathered with the Ophile tried and true "racist" epithet for challenging Obama on his "natural born" eligibility.

Reality is ignored, due to biases, mis and pre conceptions and groupthink, and the Imperial Court only considers issues through the prisms of their own concerns.

Not at all. This issue in particular cuts straight to the heart of the legitimacy of the setting government.

Either Oh'Bummer is a natural born citizen as defined in the Constitution or he is not.

If not then any government headed by him is ILLEGITIMATE and is without legal or moral force under our Constitution. That is not a trivial issue. Either we have a legally constituted government or we do not. Again I would submit that if Oh'Bummer is a fraud, which he appears to be, then any government headed by him is not legally constituted and thus a fraud.

As well there is the issue of mote juste'. I would dearly love to see a finger stuck in the eye of the Obama Worshippers simply because of their ignorant smugness and unreasoning, and unfounded, adulation of their "Messiah". If there is any one thing that really annoys me it is ignorant obstreperous stupidity.

It reminds me of a line out of "The Sands of The Kalahari" (and this is not aimed at you but rather the mindset of the O'bots):

"The difference between an honorable man and a moral man is that an honorable man regrets a discreditable act even when it has worked and he is in no danger of being caught." ~ H. L. Mencken

"Not the victory but the action; Not the goal but the game; In the deed the glory" Dies ist gut

We understand all these thing all too well. The folks on this forum weren't born yesterday.

Understood also is the fact that certain globalist factions have poured buckets of cash into this man's coffers to see him into office. They want this tool in the White House very badly it seems. He is beholden to them.

Nationialists are the scum of the earth They are the ones that those like Hitler and the others were able to control.

Well, you stick fingers in his eye while the NWO neocons continue to destroy our country. While you whine about this BS propaganda our Constitutional rights, civil liberties, economy and many other things are being destroyed. Americans are dying and killing thousands of others in unnecessary and immoral wars and China all but owns the U.S. and you want to stick a finger in somebody's eye because you have bought into the propaganda, then go ahead. What you are doing is admitting you can't or won't do what it takes to keep our country from being destroyed so you'll whine about little things. Too many Americans have become wimps.

Remember the bush AWOL crap that everybody was in such an uproar about? Wasn't anything of substance but people sure wasted a lot of time talking about it. How about the "no plane hit the pentagon crap"? You do know that the government started that BS and even paid some people to create web sites about it don't you? Think back about how many odd and/or questionable things have been said, posted or whatever which people spent far too much time on only to have them turn out to be propaganda. I would be willing to bet this whole birth certificate garbage was started by the Karl Rove bunch. Distract, distract, distract while they destroy our country.

WAKE THE HELL UP! They are experts at this type of thing and they use it because they know it keeps simple minds occupied while the real damage is done.

Uh huh...and why am I not surprised that you would associate nationalism with Hitler? Be careful, you've dropped your mask of patriotism more than once.

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George Washington were all nationalists. You are an enemy to the Republic of the United States and our constitution. I wont go easy on you anymore. You are a target.

The four faces depicted on Mt Rushmore are those of American nationalists and protectionists. Not bad company to be in.

He has never heard of Mount Rushmore. He is more likely to know where red square is.

You know, I hate flame wars, but what your are saying is downright insulting. Because it antagonizes us that a usurper might ascend to the White House, we don't care about "our Constitutional rights, civil liberties, economy and many other things"??

What you are doing is admitting you can't or won't do what it takes to keep our country from being destroyed so you'll whine about little things. Too many Americans have become wimps.

May of us have made up our minds that this issue is important. None of YOUR bitching is going to change my mind or most probably the opinion of anyone else on this board as read it.

This may be to complex for some of you but give it a shot. Maybe, just maybe you'll see the difference between patriotism and nationalism.

To understand the critical difference between the commendable impulse called patriotism, and the murderous group psychosis called nationalism, it's useful to think of the contrast between the organic reality called family ties and the silly fiction called “school spirit.”

While the terms patriotism and nationalism can refer to the same thing – the love of one's native country – in practice they have acquired very different meanings. Nationalism, in practice, describes not to the love of a country but rather the veneration of its central government.

Patriotism is not built on zero-sum assumptions: It is quite possible to love one's country ardently, while recognizing and respecting the love that patriots of other countries display for their homelands. I am convinced that one result of a global pandemic of genuine patriotism would be a general abatement of warfare, since people who really love their country would spare it the horrors of war in all but the most exigent of circumstances.

Authentic patriots thrust into combat against each other would be likely to seek the earliest possible end to conflict, as well as to pursue a just and sustainable peace. The objective, after all, would be to preserve what's best for one's own country, not to impose the will of one's government on another country.

As historian John J. Dwyer notes, nationalism is a degenerate impostor of patriotism. “The patriot says, `I love my country,' works for its good, and defends it if necessary – against enemies within and without,” writes Dwyer. “He strives and prays not primarily that God will bless his country, but that his country will bless God. The nationalist, meanwhile, says, `My country is better than yours.' `My country is the greatest there has ever been.' `The greatest nation on God’s green earth.' `They hate my country because it is so good.'”

Nationalism focuses on the State, rather than the community. It is unambiguously based on zero-sum assumptions about power, and nationalists define victory in terms of imposing their will on others.

It takes relatively little prompting to teach an individual to love his country. It requires a considerable investment of time and effort to indoctrinate him into the love of the State that rules him. The former can be taught in the home by parents who have a decent grasp of their country's history and culture. The latter, however, requires the efforts of the state's paid clergy..

Typically, an individual doesn't need prompting to love his family, even if there are some within it he doesn't like very much. Familial affection is not the product of ritualized peer pressure, like pep rallies and similar liturgies.

“School spirit,” by way of contrast, is an entirely synthetic pseudo-emotion. Public schools are about as organic as polystyrene, and the “communities” they create are the product of geographic accidents and arbitrary government decisions. They have those traits in common with the “nations” brought into being by the Power Elite after World War I.

Like those artificial “nations,” public schools compensate for their lack of community authenticity through the cynical propagation of convenient myths and the state-managed manufacture of ersatz enthusiasm.

Last fall (for reasons I'll explain below), my wife and I found it necessary to put our three oldest children into the local government school, whose mascot is the Pirate (an appropriate choice for a government-run institution). As a result we became aware of the school district's incessant efforts to instill “school spirit” in them – through competitions involving the sale of Pirate t-shirts, or classroom participation in “Pirate Fridays” by wearing the school colors.

None of this has anything to do with athletic competition; we're discussing an elementary school here. So why is there such an effort underway to confect “school spirit”?

I suspect that teaching students to revere their school is the first stage of indoctrinating them in the state-worship called nationalism. “Be true to your school” is the first line of a catechism that concludes with some variation on the theme of der staat uber alles.

As Gary North observes, this is nothing new: “Throughout the West after the rise of Napoleon, nationalism became the State's substitute for organized religion. The public schools universally inculcated some form of State-deifying nationalism.” What North describes is Rousseau's Civil Religion, in which the State -- as the instrument of collective human power -- is treated as "God."

Since the State is an abstraction, it is the most visible representative of the central government – in our case, the president – who is deified as the State Incarnate. As in the early Roman empire, our presidents are generally deified after death: Witness, for example, the revoltingly blasphemous depiction of Washington' apotheosis (literally, “ascent to godhood”) in the national Capitol, or the routine depiction of Lincoln as “the martyred Christ in democracy's passion play,” as neocon Walter Berns puts it.

In this, as in so much else having to do with executive despotism, the beady-eyed, slack-jawed, bloody-handed, illiterate little troll in the Oval Office has turned over new ground: He claims to commune with the Shekinah, or divine presence.

Recounting a recent White House lunch with Bush, British commentator Irwin Steltzer reports:

“The president divulged with convincing calm that when it comes to pressure, `I just don’t feel any.' Why? His constituency, he feels, is the divine presence, to whom he must answer. Don’t misunderstand: God didn’t tell him to put troops in harm’s way in Iraq; his belief only goes so far as to inform him that there is good and evil. It is the president who must figure out how to promote the former and destroy the latter. And he is confident that his policies are doing just that.”

How much of this is narcissism, and how much is a serious psychological disorder (I do not say that flippantly), it is difficult to say. The truly terrifying thing is that the purpose of government schools is to catechize the young in an official religion that would make them accept such grandiose claims without so much as a tremor of critical thought.

It has occurred to me, over the years of watching my fellow Americans, that there is a difference between nationalism and patriotism. It also appears that many people don't know the difference. I'm not even sure if it's proper for me to use the words that I use for the two groups that I see. But it is clear that there are these two groups, and in my personal lexicon, these are the two words I've come to label them with.

So what is the difference? The difference lies in what they are loyal to. Most of the time, the difference is difficult to spot. In the best of times, their goals align perfectly, and you can't tell the difference at all. But in times of stress, or when confronted with certain issues, the difference becomes visible, even glaring. Both are ostensively loyal to the USA, both love their country, but in truth the object of their affection differs. The former loves an institution and its trappings, while the latter loves an ideal and its principles.

Perhaps the best way to see the difference is through examples. One of the clearest is their reaction to the idea of a constitutional amendment banning flag burning. Nationalists support it because they love the flag, and want to protect it. Patriots oppose it because they love the American ideals that the flag represents, and such an amendment would be an assault on those ideals of liberty and freedom of expression.

"Now wait a minute," the astute reader might say, "aren't you just defining patriotism to match your own views on things, to justify your own self-image as a true patriot?" Certainly, a case could be made that this is indeed my motive, and indeed the motive of nearly everyone who engages in the act of trying to define 'patriotism'. By now, you've probably already formed an opinion of my view, and the motive behind your opinion is the same. But the truth of any proposition is independent of the motives of the person who proposes it. The important question here is not why I think what I do, the question is, is it true? Are there good reasons for thinking what I think on the subject?

Believe it or not, I did not come up with this definition by working backwards from my opinions on issues to what definition would justify them. I came up with it by working forward from a premise that certain people were indeed patriots. If what it means to be a patriot is in question, then who is or isn't a patriot is in question, but I figured if there are certain historical figures who we can rest assured were patriots, we could do the reverse, weeding out bad definitions of patriotism based on their agreement with the given facts.

So, we start with our given: the founding fathers were patriots. I take this as a given, since I take it that any definition that would imply that George Washington or Thomas Jefferson was not a patriot would be absurd. If Ben Franklin or Thomas Paine don't fit into someone else's notion of what it means to be a patriot, then I'm not going to be overly concerned with the fact that I don't either.

Did these people fight for the flag? Nope -- the Stars and Stripes hadn't been created yet. Okay, but did they fight for the flag they were born under? No, in fact they fought a war against those who were fighting for that flag. True patriots do not fight and die for a flag -- those who say we need to protect the flag because it's what our forefathers fought and died for have no idea what our forefathers fought and died for.

Were they fighting because it's what their government asked them to do? Again, no -- in fact their government was what they rebelled against. Ah, but they were fighting for the government yet to come, right? That's the government they were loyal to (and we should be to). Sorry, no, that would be the government they tried and then threw out 11 years later when it didn't work. Clearly these men had no particular affection for any government, not even the ones they created.

When these people fought for their country, they were not fighting for a flag, and they weren't fighting for a government, either. There was no United States at the time -- America was just an ideal, and it was that ideal that they fought for, fought to try to bring about, to bring that ideal into reality. That's what patriots do, then and now -- try to bring that ideal into reality.

"But, they already did it! Surely that can't be what modern patriots must do, if the task has already been done." But it isn't done! Take a look at the ideals they wrote about. Have all of them been fully realized? Have any of them? These are still things that need to be fought for, and the true patriot is the one that does what they did -- continues to fight for those ideals.

"But those ideals aren't what's really important -- our forefathers only fought for them because it's what they believed was in the country's best interest." That would certainly not be true for many of these men, Jefferson, Paine, and Franklin in particular, but perhaps I'm looking too closely at the most idealistic of the group, and not coincidentally, those with whom I most agree.

The defining moment, when I saw the difference most clearly, was not in fact when the flag burning issue came up; I merely use that as the most clear cut example. For me, the difference became clear when the elder George Bush criticized Bill Clinton for participating in protests against the Vietnam War, saying that it was an unpatriotic act. But wait, didn't Bill Clinton think at that that the war was not in the nation's best interest? He was right, but that's not actually relevant, the point is, if he genuinely did think that, then would not patriotism require that he act as he did? Given what he believed, it would have been unpatriotic of him to refrain from protest. If nothing else, this example showed that Bush was a nationalist, and had no idea what real patriotism is. (Of course, whether Bill Clinton was actually a patriot or not is an open question...)

Here's the real annoying thing about this other definition of patriotism. If indeed to be patriotic is to do what you think is in the nation's best interest, it becomes damn near impossible to brand the people who disagree with you as unpatriotic. As long as they're doing what they think is in the nation's best interest, they're patriotic too. There were patriots who were for the war, and patriots who were against it. This is doubtless true, no matter which war we're talking about. You can no longer spot the patriots by which side of the protest line they are on.

The nationalists, at least, are easy to spot. They wrap themselves in the red, white and blue. Their houses have American flags hanging by the front door, their cars have flag decals and bumper stickers, their walls are decorated with art depicting bald eagles, and one I know even has a bald eagle statue on his desk.

My temptation is always to contrast such people with true patriots, as if nationalism precludes patriotism, but alas, some of these people are patriots, too. Even some of the ones that don't know the difference.

Economic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which are guided by the idea of protecting domestic consumption, labor and capital formation, even if this requires the imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labour, goods and capital. It is in opposition to globalization in many cases, or at least it questions the benefits of unrestricted free trade. Economic nationalism may include such doctrines as protectionism and import substitution.

Oh yes, only blatherers that waste their breath on polemics based on two very plastic words: patriot and nationalist are capable of critical thought.

Go find some Randians or Socialists to hammer. They love this sort of quibbling.

Ha. I am a nationalist and I don't support an amendment banning flag burning. So you are full of shit. Tell me why I should read further if you are so wrong so early.

Thanks - I'm being polite - for your re-gurgitated albeit predictable lesson on the differences between patriotism and nationalism.

But what you deftly fail to acknowledge is that the knee-jerk association of nationalism with Hitler usually springs from those who are "uncomfortable" with pride in nationhood, with a sense of a common national identity because then separate tribalness is at risk in such an environment. What better way to dismiss such national identification than to associate it with tried and true favorite demon, Hitler.

The only requirement in my estimation is for people to have the same respect for the other people's individual rights as they do their own. To pigeon hole people into categories like patriots or nationalists ignores the truth regarding both, and that is neither exists by decree but rather through an earnest respect for the advantages available to and garnered by everyone in the general populace to the exclusion of none.

Many a nationalist government has been destroyed by decreeing obligations such as a draft or military service as a condition of national citizenship that wasn't worth the paper the decree was written on or upon which citizenship was based, while many a Patriot has voluntarily stood defiantly in the face of immediate harm purely out of respect for his freedom, and that of his posterity.

Which brings me to state that the never ending problem perpetually existing with the Jewish community as opposed to all of the others arises from their inability to co-exist amongst others without overtly attempting to dominate all of them.

The non-Jewish people may not be as intellectually blessed as are the Jews, but what they lack intellectually they make up in cooperative alliances, which builds a bond between them and their neighbors. We, Americans in general, are losing this necessary bond because the system is designed to divide us and keep us from (a) raising united families that (b) become united communities that (c) become a strong united States of America.

Letting these crooked Jews skim off the profits that this nation generates through their criminal banking institutions is the grandest of errors. If we can stop buying the company line (propaganda) long enough to re-establish the bonds that once made us a great nation, we can overcome the Jew alchemy that has nearly destroyed everything good about America.

When I see a low-life scumbag like Charles Schumer in the position of Senator I want to vomit. He (and quite a few of his ilk) are parasitic vermin of the lowest sort and a cancer upon liberty itself with every intention of attacking the very heart of freedom.

Thanks. The tide comes in and the tide goes out. An untenable condition exists in America but inevitably the tide will turn.